Stung by 3 court losses, ISPs stop fighting California net neutrality law

A series of court rulings against internet service providers led the broadband industry to abandon its lawsuit.

The four broadband lobby groups that sued California have agreed to dismiss the case without prejudice, according to a Wednesday filing in the US District Court for the Eastern District of California. The American Cable Association, CTIA-The Wireless Association, NCTA-The Internet & Television Association, and USTelecom are the internet service providers.

After losing three times in federal court, the internet service providers have realized that they cannot overturn the net neutrality law in California.

Thanks to the hard work of California's attorney general and the wide coalition that helped defend the law in court, the ISPs gave up instead of fighting this to the Supreme Court, she wrote.

Preliminary injunction denied three times

Before the case went to trial, the internet service providers tried to get a preliminary injunction to block the law. The judge refused to grant a preliminary injunction that would have allowed California to enforce net neutrality rules.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit unanimously upheld the lower court's ruling. The internet service provider asked for an en banc hearing with the judges. Zero judges on the appeals court thought the petition for a rehearing was worth voting on.

The full court was advised of the petition for rehearing en banc and no judge requested a vote on the matter. The order against the internet service providers denied the petition for rehearing.

The denial of a preliminary injunction doesn't prevent litigation from continuing, so the ISPs could have proceeded to a trial in US District Court. The lobby groups were persuaded not to go forward by the denials from appeals court judges.

Andrew Jay Schwartzman, senior counselor for the Benton Institute for Broadband and Society, said in a statement that the ISPs threw in the towel on their challenge to the net neutrality law.

After the dismissal, the industry groups released a statement saying that they were committed to working with Congress and the FCC to develop a federal approach for resolving the issues. Net neutrality rules at the federal and state level have been opposed by broadband lobby groups.

Judge: Law doesn’t support ISPs’ arguments

In his oral ruling against the preliminary injunction, he said that he did not find that the plaintiffs had a chance of success.

The Communications Act gave the FCC exclusive authority to regulate interstate communications, but the court found that the provisions of the Act that thePlaintiffs rely on do not.

The net neutrality law in California is similar to the federal rules that were enacted by the FCC during the Obama administration and then repealed by the Trump administration. California prohibits fixed and mobile internet service providers from blocking or slowing lawful traffic, and they can't charge websites or online services to deliver traffic to consumers. California's law prohibits paid data cap exemptions, and also says that internet service providers can't slow down traffic at network interconnection points to avoid net neutrality protections.