Modern Broadband is a Telecom Service, Says Former FCC Technology Head
The agency made similar arguments in its brief last week.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 18, 2024 – Modern broadband should be considered a telecommunications service subject to utility-style regulation, a former Federal Communications Commission staffer told federal judges Tuesday.
“Broadband Internet access service is fundamentally different than both dial-up Internet access service and the cable modem service that predominated in the first decade of the 2000s,” wrote Scott Jordan, the FCC’s chief technology officer from 2014-2016, in an amicus brief to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit..
The agency is trying to fend off a court challenge to its net neutrality rules, which reclassify broadband as a Title II telecom service under the Communications Act, rather than a Title I information service. Title II services are subject to more stringent FCC regulatory oversight.
