• by Wendy Davis , October 17, 2024

New York officials this week urged the Supreme Court to turn away broadband industry groups that are attempting to invalidate a 2021 state law requiring carriers to offer $15 a month service to low-income residents.

Earlier this year, a federal appellate court upheld the law, which had been challenged by cable and telecom lobbying groups including CTIA--The Wireless Association, ACA Connects--America's Communications Association, US Telecom--The Broadband Association, and NTCA--the Rural Broadband Association.

Last month, those groups asked the Supreme Court to hear their challenge to the New York Affordable Broadband Act, arguing that only the federal government has authority to regulate broadband.

The groups wrote that the statute “threatens to spark a nationwide, state-by-state race to dictate the prices at which broadband service is sold to consumers.”

New York Attorney General Letitia James is now urging the Supreme Court to reject those organizations' request.

“This case does not merit this Court’s review because the Second Circuit’s decision is correct,” James argued in papers filed this week.

She added that federal judges in California and Maine have rejected the argument that only the federal government can regulate broadband.

Two years ago in California, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a state net neutrality law that prohibits broadband providers from blocking or throttling traffic, charging higher fees for fast-lane service, and exempting their own video streams from consumers' data caps.

And four years ago in Maine, a federal district court judge refused to block a state privacy law that requires broadband providers to obtain people's consent before using web-browsing data for ad targeting.

New York's James also tells the Supreme Court that there is “no merit” to the broadband industry's speculation that New York's Affordable Broadband Act will have an impact in other states.

“The ABA was enacted more than three years ago,” the attorney general's office writes, using an abbreviation for the state law. “But as far as respondent is aware, no other State has enacted a law that, like the ABA, requires broadband providers to offer low-income individuals an affordable broadband product.”

The Supreme Court hasn't yet indicated when it will rule on the cable organizations' request.