In an article published in the December 4 New York Times, entitled “Supreme Court to Hear Case on Cable as Internet Carrier,” reported that “The F.C.C. had decided after two years of study that broadband cable service was an ‘information service’ and not a ‘telecommunications service’ – categories that in the commission’s view are mutually exclusive under the 1996 Telecommunications Act. By placing cable on the ‘information’ side, the commission freed it from the obligations the law places on carriers like traditional phone companies, which must permit interconnection with other carriers.
“But the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit disagreed, ruling last year that cable broadband service was a hybrid that could not be freed by administrative decree from its common-carrier obligations.”
Is this but another act of judicial activism or is their some merit to the judge’s theory of an “information/telecommunications” hybrid? Although the Ole Seagull has a problem with judicial activism he must acknowledge that the fact that the internet is being used to provide telephone services does give credence to the judge’s position.
