Cable Broadband Providers Don't Need To Share Lines With ISPs

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

30 June 2005

Ruling on Tuesday, the US Supreme Court supported the Federal Communications Commission's assertion that cable broadband providers should not be obliged to share their lines with internet service providers.

In October 2003, a three-judge panel at the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that the FCC was wrong to effectively absolve cable companies of the obligation to share their networks with rival providers.

In the 39 page ruling, the judges argued that the FCC was wrong when it decided to categorise cable broadband providers as 'information services' for regulatory purposes, thus subjecting them to much lighter regulation.

The appellate court found that the cable broadband firms were also partly providing 'telecommunications services', and should therefore be subject to the greater obligations which come with this.

However, in a 6-3 decision delivered on Tuesday, Supreme Court justices stated that the FCC was right to classify cable broadband providers as information services rather than telecommunications services.

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