AT&T Wants Supreme Court To Strip FTC Of Authority Over Broadband

by Wendy Davis @wendyndavis, May 4, 2018
AT&T plans to ask the Supreme Court to reverse a high-profile decision that restored the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to prosecute broadband providers, the telecom said this week in court papers.

The company’s statement came in a status report submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Edward Chen in the Northern District of California. He is presiding over an FTC lawsuit alleging that AT&T duped millions of wireless customers by promising unlimited data, but throttling their speeds after they hit a monthly data cap. (AT&T used to throttle its “unlimited” subscribers after they exceeded monthly allotments ranging from 3 GB to 5 GB; the company has since revised that practice.)

AT&T argued that the lawsuit should be dismissed on the ground that the FTC lacks authority over telecoms like itself.

A three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals initially agreed with AT&T, but a larger 11-judge panel ruled against the company in February. The 11 judges said in a unanimous decision that the FTC may prosecute common carriers, provided the prosecution deals with a non-common carrier service, like wireless broadband. (When the FTC filed its case, wireless broadband was not a common carrier service.)
https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/318803/att-wants-supreme-court-to-strip-ftc-of-authority.html

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