The cities of Los Angeles and New York, joined by the County of Santa Clara and the Santa Clara County Central Fire Protection District, have asked the FCC for another 60 days to comment on the parts of the FCC's Restoring Internet Freedom order remanded to the FCC for justification.
That is according to a copy of the request obtained by Multichannel News.
The initial deadlines were March 30 and April 29, which the FCC extended by 21 days each at the request of the cities.
In a letter to the FCC's Competition Policy Division, the cities said that while they appreciated that extension, "circumstances have not improved since our initial request was submitted."
They said that by contrast, since it asked for the initial extension March 11, they have all implemented shelter-in-place orders and public safety and health officials are concentrating on mitigating the pandemic and "cannot be diverted from their critical operations" to make sure the net neutrality record has been completely refreshed.
They said they were confident the FCC would not make then choose between protecting the public and protecting the public's interest in the outcome of the remand proceeding.
The court upheld the FCC's elimination of net neutrality rules and its reclassification of internet access as an information service not subject to mandatory access common carrier regs. But it did direct the FCC to better explain the impact of its elimination of rules against blocking, throttling and paid prioritization and reclassification of ISP as Title I information services on public safety, the regulation of pole attachments, and its Lifeline broadband/phone subsidy program. The FCC is seeking comment on that ultimate explanation.
