• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, March 11, 2025

A federal appeals court on Tuesday refused to reconsider a ruling that struck down net neutrality rules that would have prohibited broadband providers from blocking traffic based on its content.

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order that none of the court's judges requested a vote on a request by Free Press and other net neutrality proponents for a new hearing in the case.

The court's decision means that the Federal Communications Commission's 2024 net neutrality order will not take effect, absent intervention by the Supreme Court.

Free Press says it is still weighing next moves in consultation with other advocacy groups.

“Today's decision is disappointing but not decisive,” Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. Gonzalez stated through a spokesperson.

She added that Free Press and other advocates, including Public Knowledge, Open Technology Institute and the Benton Institute, will consider all options and "pursue the path that will best protect the American people from the excesses of broadband internet providers.”

The FCC's 2024 order reclassified broadband as a “telecommunications” service, and imposed some common-carrier restrictions on providers -- including bans on blocking or throttling content, and on charging higher fees for prioritized delivery. The order was passed by a politically divided agency, with Brendan Carr, the current chair, dissenting.

Net neutrality advocates argue that those rules would help prevent cable companies and telecoms from thwarting competition from streaming video companies, as well as from censoring material. But cable companies and telecoms claim the regulations would discourage providers from innovating.

Soon after the FCC issued the order, broadband industry groups sued to invalidate the rules, arguing the FCC lacked authority for the regulations.

The FCC, which was under Democratic leadership last year, defended the rules in court. Free Press and other advocacy groups intervened in the case and also asked the court to uphold the rules.

In January, a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the FCC's order, ruling that broadband should be considered an “information” service, not a telecommunications service.

“It makes sense to exclusively classify integrated services, including those offered by broadband internet service providers, as information services,” the judges wrote.

That holding was fatal to the rules because the FCC can only impose common carrier obligations on providers of telecommunications services.

The current FCC is not appealing that order.

But Free Press and other intervenors recently asked the 6th Circuit for a new hearing, arguing that broadband service should be considered a telecommunications service as the term is defined in the Communications Act. That law defines telecommunications as “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user's choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.”

The advocacy groups also noted that the District of Columbia Circuit Court previously upheld the FCC's Obama-era net neutrality rules, which also classified broadband as a telecommunications service. (Those prior rules were revoked in 2017, when Republican Ajit Pai led the agency. The rules passed in 2024 were largely similar to the ones issued in 2017.)

The 6th Circuit said in Tuesday's order that the judges already “fully considered” those arguments.