Legal Scholar: Net Neutrality ‘National Nightmare’ Over
Daniel Lyons sees Sixth Circuit ruling as a win for tech and administrative law.
Gabriel Dorner
WASHINGTON, Jan. 10, 2025—Last week’s landmark decision to block the Federal Communications Commission's from exercising power to impose net neutrality has prompted another expert to weigh in on the issue.
Daniel Lyons, a law professor at Boston College and nonresident senior fellow for the American Enterprise Institute, praised the court’s decision in an AEI post Thursday.
“The decision is good news for tech innovation” and “a victory for tech policy, freeing Internet access from the shadow of overbearing regulation,” Lyons said.
He also declared, in reference to years of legal ping-pong with the FCC, “My fellow tech policy enthusiasts, our long national nightmare is over.”
A panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled on Jan. 2 that the FCC did not have authority to classify broadband Internet Service Providers as common carriers subject to utility regulation.
Lyons agreed with the court’s new interpretation that broadband is an unregulated information service.
Now, “the FCC cannot impose a one-size-fits-all business model on broadband providers, allowing them to explore innovations like 5G network slicing without fearing regulatory backlash,” he wrote.
Law professor and net neutrality expert Barbara van Schewik, who last year raised concerns about 5G network slicing, reacted very differently to the court ruling.
Van Schewik told NPR’s All Things Considered host, Juana Summers, that the decision is “a huge setback for American consumers and businesses that rely on the Internet.”
One of Lyons' more significant concerns over the FCC’s interpretation that broadband ISPs were subject to regulation under Title II of the Communications Act.
He said Title II was “originally designed to discipline the telephone system.”
With the court’s reclassification, Lyons says providers are no longer at risk of rate regulation and other “onerous” requirements.
On whether this marks the end of the net neutrality saga, he said more litigation is possible but unlikely to succeed under the new administration.
“Intervenors could seek Supreme Court review, although with the incoming Trump administration uninterested in defending the FCC order, the Court is unlikely to take the case,” he explained.
Some experts have indicated that states could introduce their own net neutrality laws to keep consumer protections in place.
Lyons acknowledged that possibility, saying, “The information service classification reopens the door for states to implement their own regulations, such as California’s net neutrality rules and New York’s broadband affordability initiative.”
He concluded the post with a word of advice for the incoming Trump administration: “In a post-Chevron world, the road to lasting change goes not through agencies, but through Congress.”
