IAC

Since the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was selected to hear appeals of the FCC's Open Internet Order -- it is now even more likely that the FCC's net neutrality regulations will be overturned in court as unlawful and/or unconstitutional.

• Regardless of which Appeals Court heard this case, Verizon was highly likely to win in its appeal against the FCC rules on the merits.
• Now Verizon's chances increase further given that the most knowledgeable, expert, and experienced Circuit Court of Appeals is hearing this case.
  • (See analysis here for why the FCC is highly likely to lose this case.)

The D.C. Circuit is the Appeals Court that traditionally hears cases involving independent regulatory agencies like the FCC, so the D.C. Circuit Judges are very familiar with both the limits of the FCC's statutory authority and the FCC's proven penchant for trying to overreach their statutory authority.

In a nutshell, the FCC's legal case stands on two very slippery assumptions.

See my Forbes Tech Capitalist post here "Why Verizon Wins Appeal of FCC's Net Regs."

• It analyzes why the FCC's net neutrality regulations will offend the Court of Appeals and why they are highly likely to be overturned.
• This is one of the most poorly defended FCC decisions I have reviewed in my twenty years following the FCC.

It will be surprising if the Republican FCC Commissioners and a bipartisan majority of Congress do not oppose the FCC's unwarranted war on wireless competition policy.

• The FCC appears to be itching to start another political battle over competition policy with its upcoming fifteenth wireless competition report to Congress, by making another political decision devoid of supporting evidence or merit, that the wireless market does not have "effective competition."
  • Such a fantastical political finding, helps the FCC to ignore Congress and the law yet again, and also to unilaterally impose new sweeping economic regulations on wireless, including net neutrality.

The linchpin of the FCC's de-competition policy to restore the FCC to its pre-1996 monopoly regulation glory days, and to put the FCC in more control of the communications sector going forward, is to politically define away the existence of "effective competition," in order to justify FCC regulation of the mobile Internet.

Now we know what "real net neutrality" and "openness" are, and that they are the antithesis of free market economics or competition.

As the FreePress-led letter to the FCC made clear on Friday: "Paid prioritization is the antithesis of openness. Any framework that does not prohibit such economic discrimination arrangements is not real net neutrality."

What is "paid prioritization?"

• It is quality of service guarantees, market economics, supply and demand, market-based pricing, investment incentives, competitive differentiation, and reasonable network management.
• Now we know "real network neutrality" and "openness" is more uneconomics from FreePress and the extreme left.

Remember FreePress' last Uneconomics 101 lesson was that "above-cost pricing" was an "unfair business practice."