# Restoring Internet Freedom > Briefs, arguments, decisions, and more. URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/fr%3A2018-03464 ## Record - **Collection:** Federal Register - **Document type:** Rule - **Published:** February 22, 2018 - **Citation:** 83 FR 7852 ## Text FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION 47 CFR Parts 1, 8, and 20 [WC Docket No. 17-108; FCC 17-166] Restoring Internet Freedom AGENCY: Federal Communications Commission. ACTION: Final rule. SUMMARY: In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) returns to the light-touch regulatory scheme that enabled the internet to develop and thrive for nearly two decades. The Commission restores the classification of broadband internet access service as a lightly-regulated information service and reinstates the private mobile service classification of mobile broadband internet access service. The Restoring Internet Freedom Order requires internet service providers (ISPs) to disclose information about their network management practices, performance characteristics, and commercial terms of service. Finding that transparency is sufficient to protect the openness of the internet and that conduct rules have greater costs than benefits, the Order eliminates the conduct rules imposed by the Title II Order. DATES: Effective date: April 23, 2018, except for amendatory instructions 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8, which are delayed as follows. The FCC will publish a document in the Federal Register announcing the effective date(s) of the delayed amendatory instructions, which are contingent on OMB approval of the modified information collection requirements in 47 CFR 8.1 (amendatory instruction 5). The Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order will also be effective upon the date announced in that same document. FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Ramesh Nagarajan, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at (202) 418-2582, ramesh.nagarajan@fcc.gov. For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to PRA@fcc.gov or contact Nicole Ongele at (202) 418-2991. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: This is a summary of the Commission's Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order (“ Restoring Internet Freedom Order” ) in WC Docket No. 17-108, adopted on December 14, 2017 and released on January 4, 2018. The full text of this document is available at https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-17-166A1.pdf. The full text is also available for public inspection during regular business hours in the FCC Reference Information Center, Portals II, 445 12th Street SW, Room CY-A257, Washington, DC 20554. To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities ( e.g., braille, large print, electronic files, audio format, etc.) or to request reasonable accommodations ( e.g., accessible format documents, sign language interpreters, CART, etc.), send an email to fcc504@fcc.gov or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice) or (202) 418-0432 (TTY). The language following the DATES caption of this preamble is provided to ensure compliance with 1 CFR 18.17. Synopsis In this Declaratory Ruling, Report and Order, and Order, the Commission restores the light-touch regulatory scheme that fostered the internet's growth, openness, and freedom. Through these actions, we advance our critical work to promote broadband deployment in rural America and infrastructure investment throughout the nation, brighten the future of innovation both within networks and at their edge, and move closer to the goal of eliminating the digital divide. I. Ending Public-Utility Regulation of the Internet 1. We reinstate the information service classification of broadband internet access service, consistent with the Supreme Court's holding in Brand X. Based on the record before us, we conclude that the best reading of the relevant definitional provisions of the Act supports classifying broadband internet access service as an information service. Having determined that broadband internet access service, regardless of whether offered using fixed or mobile technologies, is an information service under the Act, we also conclude that as an information service, mobile broadband internet access service should not be classified as a commercial mobile service or its functional equivalent. We find that it is well within our legal authority to classify broadband internet access service as an information service, and reclassification also comports with applicable law governing agency decisions to change course. While we find our legal analysis sufficient on its own to support an information service classification of broadband internet access service, strong public policy considerations further weigh in favor of an information service classification. Below, we find that economic theory, empirical data, and even anecdotal evidence also counsel against imposing public-utility style regulation on ISPs. The broader internet ecosystem thrived under the light-touch regulatory treatment of Title I, with massive investment and innovation by both ISPs and edge providers, leading to previously unimagined technological developments and services. We conclude that a return to Title I classification will facilitate critical broadband investment and innovation by removing regulatory uncertainty and lowering compliance costs. A. Reinstating the Information Service Classification of Broadband Internet Access Service 1. Scope 2. We continue to define “broadband internet access service” as a mass-market retail service by wire or radio that provides the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all internet endpoints, including any capabilities that are incidental to and enable the operation of the communications service, but excluding dial-up internet access service. By mass market, we mean services marketed and sold on a standardized basis to residential customers, small businesses, and other end-user customers such as schools and libraries. “Schools” would include institutions of higher education to the extent that they purchase these standardized retail services. For purposes of this definition, “mass market” also includes broadband internet access service purchased with the support of the E-rate and Rural Healthcare programs, as well as any broadband internet access service offered using networks supported by the Connect America Fund (CAF), but does not include enterprise service offerings or special access services, which are typically offered to larger organizations through customized or individually negotiated arrangements. 3. The term “broadband internet access service” includes services provided over any technology platform, including but not limited to wire, terrestrial wireless (including fixed and mobile wireless services using licensed or unlicensed spectrum), and satellite. For purposes of our discussion, we divide the various forms of broadband internet access service into the two categories of “fixed” and “mobile.” With these two categories of services—fixed and mobile—we intend to cover the entire universe of internet access services at issue in the Commission's prior broadband classification decisions, as well as all other broadband internet access services offered over other technology platforms that were not addressed by prior classification orders. We also make clear that our classification finding applies to all providers of broadband internet access service, as we delineate them here, regardless of whether they lease or own the facilities used to provide the service. “Fixed” broadband internet access service refers to a broadband internet access service that serves end users primarily at fixed endpoints using stationary equipment, such as the modem that connects an end user's home router, computer, or other internet access device to the internet. The term encompasses the delivery of fixed broadband over any medium, including various forms of wired broadband services ( e.g., cable, DSL, fiber), fixed wireless broadband services (including fixed services using unlicensed spectrum), and fixed satellite broadband services. “Mobile” broadband internet access service refers to a broadband internet access service that serves end users primarily using mobile stations. Mobile broadband internet access includes, among other things, services that use smartphones or mobile-network-enabled tablets as the primary endpoints for connection to the internet. The term also encompasses mobile satellite broadband services. We note that “public safety services” as defined in Section 337(f)(1) would not meet the definition of “broadband internet access service” subject to the rules herein given that “such services are not made commercially available to the public by the provider” as a mass-market retail service. 4. As the Commission found in 2010, broadband internet access service does not include services offering connectivity to one or a small number of internet endpoints for a particular device, e.g., connectivity bundled with e-readers, heart monitors, or energy consumption sensors, to the extent the service relates to the functionality of the device. To the extent these services are provided by ISPs over last-mile capacity shared with broadband internet access service, they would be non-broadband internet access service data services (formerly specialized services). As the Commission found in both 2010 and 2015, non-broadband internet access service data services do not fall under the broadband internet access service category. Such services generally are not used to reach large parts of the internet; are not a generic platform, but rather a specific applications-level service; and use some form of network management to isolate the capacity used by these services from that used by broadband internet access services. Further, we observe that to the extent ISPs “use their broadband infrastructure to provide video and voice services, those services are regulated in their own right.” 5. Broadband internet access service also does not include virtual private network (VPN) services, content delivery networks (CDNs), hosting or data storage services, or internet backbone services (if those services are separate from broadband internet access service), consistent with past Commission precedent. The Commission has historically distinguished these services from “mass market” services, as they do not provide the capability to transmit data to and receive data from all or substantially all internet endpoints. We do not disturb that finding here. Consistent with past Commissions, we note that the transparency rule we adopt today applies only so far as the limits of an ISP's control over the transmission of data to or from its broadband customers. 6. Finally, we observe that to the extent that coffee shops, bookstores, airlines, private end-user networks such as libraries and universities, and other businesses acquire broadband internet access service from an ISP to enable patrons to access the internet from their respective establishments, provision of such service by the premise operator would not itself be considered a broadband internet access service unless it was offered to patrons as a retail mass market service, as we define it here. Although not bound by the transparency rule we adopt today, we encourage premise operators to disclose relevant restrictions on broadband service they make available to their patrons. Likewise, when a user employs, for example, a wireless router or a Wi-Fi hotspot to create a personal Wi-Fi network that is not intentionally offered for the benefit of others, he or she is not offering a broadband internet access service under our definition, because the user is not marketing and selling such service to residential customers, small business, and other end-user customers such as schools and libraries. 2. Broadband Internet Access Service is an Information Service Under the Act 7. In deciding how to classify broadband internet access service, we find that the best reading of the relevant definitional provisions of the Act supports classifying broadband internet access service as an information service. Section 3 of the Act defines an “information service” as “the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications, and includes electronic publishing, but does not include any use of any such capability for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunications system or the management of a telecommunications service.” Section 3 defines a “telecommunications service,” by contrast, as “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public, or to such classes of users as to be effectively available directly to the public, regardless of the facilities used.” Finally, Section 3 defines “telecommunications”—used in each of the prior two definitions—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.” Prior to the Title II Order the Commission had long interpreted and applied these terms to classify various forms of internet access service as information services—a conclusion affirmed as reasonable by the Supreme Court in Brand X. Our action here simply returns to that prior approach. 8. When interpreting a statute it administers, the Commission, like all agencies, “must operate `within the bounds of reasonable interpretation.' And reasonable statutory interpretation must account for both `the specific context in which . . . language is used' and `the broader context of the statute as a whole.' ” Below, we first explore the meaning of the “capability” contemplated in the statutory definition of “information service,” and find that broadband internet access service provides consumers the “capability” to engage in all of the information processes listed in the information service definition. We also find that broadband internet access service likewise provides information processing functionalities itself, such as DNS and caching, which satisfy the capabilities set forth in the information service definition. We then address what “capabilities” we believe are being “offered” by ISPs, and whether these are reasonably viewed as separate from or inextricably intertwined with transmission, and find that broadband internet access service offerings inextricably intertwine these information processing capabilities with transmission. 9. We find that applying our understanding of the statutory definitions to broadband internet access service as it is offered today most soundly leads to the conclusion that it is an information service. Although the internet marketplace has continued to develop in the years since the earliest classification decisions, broadband internet access service offerings still involve a number of “capabilities” within the meaning of the Section 3 definition of information services, including critical capabilities that all ISP customers must use for the service to work as it does today. While many popular uses of the internet have shifted over time, the record reveals that broadband internet access service continues to offer information service capabilities that typical users both expect and rely upon. Indeed, the basic nature of internet service—“[p]rovid[ing] consumers with a comprehensive capability for manipulating information using the internet via high-speed telecommunications”—has remained the same since the Supreme Court upheld the Commission's similar classification of cable modem service as an information service twelve years ago. 10. A body of precedent from the courts and the Commission served as the backdrop for the 1996 Act and informed the Commission's original interpretation and implementation of the statutory definitions of “telecommunications,” “telecommunications service,” and “information service.” The classification decisions in the Title II Order discounted or ignored much of that precedent. Without viewing ourselves as formally bound by that prior precedent, we find it eminently reasonable, as a legal matter, to give significant weight to that pre-1996 Act precedent in resolving how the statutory definitions apply to broadband internet access service, enabling us to resolve statutory ambiguity in a manner that we believe best reflects Congress's understanding and intent. Our analysis thus is not at odds with the statement in USTelecom that the 1996 Act definitions were not “intended to freeze in place the Commission's existing classification of various services.” Consistent with this approach as a traditional tool of statutory interpretation, we reject arguments that suggest that we should disregard this precedent largely out-of-hand. More generally, of course, this precedent— Brand X in particular—demonstrates that the Act does not compel a telecommunications service classification. a. Broadband Internet Access Service Information Processing Capabilities 11. We begin by evaluating the “information service” definition and conclude that it encompasses broadband internet access service. Broadband internet access service includes “capabilit[ies]” meeting the information service definition under a range of reasonable interpretations of that term. In other contexts, the Commission has looked to dictionary definitions and found the term “capability” to be “broad and expansive,” including the concepts of “potential ability” and “the capacity to be used, treated, or developed for a particular purpose.” Because broadband internet access service necessarily has the capacity or potential ability to be used to engage in the activities within the information service definition—“generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications”—we conclude that it is best understood to have those “capabilit[ies].” The record reflects that fundamental purposes of broadband internet access service are for its use in “ generating” and “ making available” information to others, for example through social media and file sharing; “ acquiring” and “ retrieving” information from sources such as websites and online streaming and audio applications, gaming applications, and file sharing applications; “ storing” information in the cloud and remote servers, and via file sharing applications; “ transforming” and “ processing” information such as by manipulating images and documents, online gaming use, and through applications that offer the ability to send and receive email, cloud computing and machine learning capabilities; and “ utilizing” information by interacting with stored data. These are just a few examples of how broadband internet access service enables customers to generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize, and make available information. These are not merely incidental uses of broadband internet access service—rather, because it not only has “the capacity to be used” for these “particular purpose[s]” but was designed and intended to do so, we find that broadband internet access is best interpreted as providing customers with the “capability” for such interactions with third party providers. 12. We also find that broadband internet access is an information service irrespective of whether it provides the entirety of any end user functionality or whether it provides end user functionality in tandem with edge providers. We do not believe that Congress, in focusing on the “offering of a capability,” intended the classification question to turn on an analysis of which capabilities the end user selects. Further, we are unpersuaded by commenters who assert that in order to be considered an “information service,” an ISP must not only offer customers the “capability” for interacting with information that may be offered by third parties (“click-through”), but must also provide the ultimate content and applications themselves. Although there is no dispute that many edge providers likewise perform functions to facilitate information processing capabilities, they all depend on the combination of information-processing and transmission that ISPs make available through broadband internet access service. The fundamental purpose of broadband internet access service is to “enable a constant flow of computer-mediated communications between end-user devices and various servers and routers to facilitate interaction with online content.” 13. From the earliest decisions classifying internet access service, the Commission recognized that even when ISPs enable subscribers to access third party content and services, that can constitute “a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications.” As the Commission explained in the Stevens Report, “[s]ubscribers can retrieve files from the World Wide Web, and browse their contents, because their service provider offers the `capability for . . . acquiring, . . . retrieving [and] utilizing . . . information.' ” Attempts to distinguish the Commission's classification precedent thus are unfounded insofar as they fail to account for this aspect of the Commission's analysis in those orders. Thus, even where an ISP enables end-users to access the content or applications of a third party, the Commission nonetheless found that constituted the requisite information service “capability.” When the Title II Order attempted to evaluate customer perception based on their usage of broadband internet access service, it failed to persuasively grapple with the relevant implications of prior Commission classification precedent. The Title II Order argued that broadband internet access service primarily is used to access content, applications, and services from third parties unaffiliated with the ISP in support of the view that customers perceive it as a separate offering of telecommunications. The Title II Order offers no explanation as to why its narrower view of “capability” was more reasonable than the Commission's previous, long-standing view (other than seeking to advance the classification outcome that Order was driving towards). Consequently, the Title II Order essentially assumed away the legal question of whether end-users perceive broadband internet access service as offering them the “capability for . . . acquiring, . . . retrieving [and] utilizing . . . information” under the broader reading of “capability” in prior Commission precedent. 14. But even if “capability” were understood as requiring more of the information processing to be performed by the classified service itself, we find that broadband internet access service meets that standard. Not only do ISPs offer end users the capability to interact with information online in each and every one of the ways set forth above, they also do so through a variety of functionally integrated information processing components that are part and parcel of the broadband internet access service offering itself. In particular, we conclude that DNS and caching functionalities, as well as certain other information processing capabilities offered by ISPs, are integrated information processing capabilities offered as part of broadband internet access service to consumers today. In addition to DNS and caching, the record reflects that ISPs may also offer a variety of additional features that consist of information processing functionality inextricably intertwined with the underlying service. These additional features include, and are not limited to: email, speed test servers, backup and support services, geolocation-based advertising, data storage, parental controls, unique programming content, spam protection, pop-up blockers, instant messaging services, on-the-go access to Wi-Fi hotspots, and various widgets, toolbars, and applications. While we do not find the offering of these information processing capabilities determinative of the classification of broadband internet access service, their inclusion in the broadband internet access service, and the capabilities and functionalities necessary to make these features possible, further support the “information service” classification. 15. DNS. We find that DNS is an indispensable functionality of broadband internet access service. While we accept that DNS is not necessary for transmission, we reject assertions that it is not indispensable to the broadband internet access service customers use—and expect—today. DNS is a core function of broadband internet access service that involves the capabilities of generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing and making available information. DNS is used to facilitate the information retrieval capabilities that are inherent in internet access. DNS allows “`click through' access from one web page to another, and its computer processing functions analyze user queries to determine which website (and server) would respond best to the user's request.” And “[b]ecause it translates human language ( e.g., the name of a website) into the numerical data ( i.e., an IP address) that computers can process, it is indispensable to ordinary users as they navigate the internet.” Without DNS, a consumer would not be able to access a website by typing its advertised name ( e.g., fcc.gov or cnn.com ). The Brand X Court recognized the importance of DNS, concluding that “[f]or an internet user, `DNS is a must. . . . [N]early all of the internet's network services use DNS. That includes the World Wide Web, electronic mail, remote terminal access, and file transfer.' ” While ISPs are not the sole providers of DNS services, the vast majority of ordinary consumers rely upon the DNS functionality provided by their ISP, and the absence of ISP-provided DNS would fundamentally change the online experience for the consumer. We also observe that DNS, as it is used today, provides more than a functionally integrated address-translation capability, but also enables other capabilities critical to providing a functional broadband internet access service to the consumer, including for example, a variety of underlying network functionality information associated with name service, alternative routing mechanisms, and information distribution. 16. The treatment of similar functions in MFJ precedent bolsters our conclusion. Despite the fact that the telecommunications management exception (and information service definition more broadly) was drawn most directly from the MFJ, the Title II Order essentially ignored MFJ precedent when concluding that DNS fell within the statutory telecommunications management exception. In addition, even the Title II Order' s limited use of Computer Inquiries precedent focused mostly on relatively high-level Commission statements about the general sorts of capabilities that could be basic (or adjunct-to-basic) or drew analogies to specific holdings that are at best ambiguous as to their application to broadband internet access service. When analyzing “gateway” functionalities by which BOCs would provide end-users with access to third party information services, the MFJ court found that “address translation,” which enabled “the consumer [to] use an abbreviated code or signal . . . in order to access the information service provider” such as through “the translation of a mnemonic code into [a] telephone number,” rendered gateways an information service. We recognize that gateway functionalities and broadband internet access service are not precisely coextensive in scope. We do, however, find similarities between functionalities such as address translation and storage and retrieval to key functionalities provided by ISPs as part of broadband internet access service, and we conclude the court found such gateway and similar functionalities independently sufficient to warrant an information service classification under the MFJ. The “address translation” gateway function appears highly analogous to the DNS function of broadband internet access service, which enables end users to use easier-to-remember domain names to initiate access to the associated IP addresses of edge providers. That MFJ precedent, neglected by the Title II Order, thus supports our finding that the inclusion of DNS in broadband internet access service offerings likewise renders that service an information service. We rely on this analogy between DNS and particular functions classified under pre-1996 Act precedent not because the technologies are identical in all particulars, but because they share the same relevant characteristics for purposes of making a classification decision under the Act. Given the close fit between DNS and the address translation function classified as an information service under the MFJ coupled with the fact that the statutory information service definition (and telecommunications management exception) was drawn more directly from the MFJ, we find the MFJ precedent entitled to more weight than analogies to Computer Inquiries precedent. We thus are not persuaded by arguments seeking to analogize DNS to directory assistance, which the Commission classified as “adjunct-to-basic” under the Computer Inquiries. 17. We thus find that the Title II Order erred in finding that DNS functionalities fell within the telecommunications systems management exception to the definition of “information service.” That exception from the statutory information service definition was drawn from the language of the MFJ, and was understood as “directed at internal operations, not at services for customers or end users.” The court's definition of information services excluded capabilities “for the management, control, or operation of a telecommunication system or the management of a telecommunications service.” Under the Communications Act, the definition of “information services” includes an identically-worded “telecommunications management” exception. Commission precedent and legislative history likewise recognize that the definition was drawn from the MFJ. We interpret the concepts of “management, control, or operation” in the telecommunications management exception consistent with that understanding. Applying that interpretation, we find the record reflects that little or nothing in the DNS look-up process is designed to help an ISP “manage” its network; instead, DNS functionalities “provide stored information to end users to help them navigate the internet.” As AT&T explains: “When an end user types a domain name into his or her browser and sends a DNS query to an ISP, . . . the ISP . . . converts the human-language domain name into a numerical IP address, and it then conveys that information back to the end user . . . [who] (via his or her browser) thereafter sends a follow-up request for the internet resources located at that numerical IP address.” DNS does not merely “manage” a telecommunications service, as some commenters assert, but rather is a function that is useful and essential to providing internet access for the ordinary consumer. We are persuaded that “[w]ere DNS simply a management function, this would not be the case.” Comparing functions that would fall within the exception illustrates the distinction. For example, in contrast to DNS's interaction with users and their applications, “non-user, management-only protocols might include things such as Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), Network Control Protocol (NETCONF), or DOCSIS bootfiles for controlling the configuration of cable modems.” These protocols support services that manage the network independent of the transmission of information initiated by a user. Other functions that would fall into the telecommunications systems management exception might include information systems for account management and billing, configuration management, and the monitoring of failures and other state information, and to keep track of which addresses are reachable through each of the interconnected neighboring networks. 18. The Title II Order drew erroneous conclusions from Computer Inquiries precedent and too quickly rejected objections to its treatment of DNS as meeting the telecommunications management exception. The same shortcomings are present in the Title II Order' s analysis of caching, as well. Under the Computer Inquiries framework, the Commission held that some capabilities “may properly be associated with basic [common carrier] service without changing its nature, or with an enhanced service without changing the classification of the latter as unregulated under Title II of the Act.” These commonly came to be known as “adjunct” capabilities. The Commission has held that functions it had classified as “adjunct-to-basic” under the Computer Inquiries framework will fall within the statutory telecommunications management exception to the information service definition. Drawing loose analogies to certain functions described as adjunct-to-basic under Commission precedent, the Title II Order held that DNS fell within the telecommunications management exception. 19. The Title II Order incorrectly assumed that so long as a functionality was, in part, used in a manner that could be viewed as adjunct-to-basic, it necessarily was adjunct-to-basic regardless of what the functionality otherwise accomplished. In addition to the MFJ precedent, Bureau precedent similarly has observed that adjunct-to-basic capabilities do not include functions “useful to end users, rather than carriers.” Given the lack of ambiguity in the MFJ's holding in this regard, we find it more reasonable to interpret this precedent to call for a similar requirement that “adjunct to basic” services do not include services primarily useful to end-users, and reject arguments to the contrary. Although confronted with claims that DNS is, in significant part, designed to be useful to end-users rather than providers, the Title II Order nonetheless decided that it fell within the telecommunications management exception. The same is true of the Title II Order' s treatment of caching. While conceding that DNS, as well as other functions like caching, “do provide a benefit to subscribers,” the Title II Order held that they nonetheless fell within the telecommunications management exception because it found some aspect of their operation also was of use to providers in managing their networks. This expansive view of the telecommunications management exception—and associated narrowing of the scope of information services—is a transposition of the analytical approach embodied in the MFJ and Computer Inquiries; under the approach in the pre-1996 Act precedent, the analysis would instead begin with the broad language of the information service or enhanced service definitions, generally excluding particular functions only if the purpose served clearly was narrowly focused on facilitating bare transmission. The Commission and the courts made clear the narrow scope of the `adjunct-to-basic' or `telecommunications management' categories in numerous decisions in many different contexts.). Notably, the focus remains on the purpose or use of the specific function in question and not merely whether the resulting service, as a whole, is useful to end-users. 20. The Title II Order also put misplaced reliance on Computer Inquiries adjunct-to-basic precedent from the traditional telephone service context as a comparison when evaluating broadband internet access service functionalities. Because broadband internet access service was not directly addressed in pre-1996 Act Computer Inquiries and MFJ precedent, analogies to functions that were classified under that precedent must account for potentially distinguishing characteristics not only in terms of technical details but also in terms of the regulatory backdrop. The 1996 Act enunciates a policy for the internet that distinguishes broadband internet access from legacy services like traditional telephone service. The 1996 Act explains that it is federal policy “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” The application of potentially ambiguous precedent to broadband internet access service should be informed by how well—or how poorly—it advances that deregulatory statutory policy. We find that our approach to that precedent, which results in an information service classification of broadband internet access service, better advances that deregulatory policy than the approach in the Title II Order, which led to the imposition of utility-style regulation under Title II. 21. The regulatory history of traditional telephone service also informs our understanding of Computer Inquiries precedent, further distinguishing it from broadband internet access service. Given the long history of common carriage offering of that service by the time of the Computer Inquiries, it is understandable that some precedent started with a presumption that the underlying service was a “basic service.” But similar assumptions would not be warranted in the case of services other than traditional telephone service for which there was no similar longstanding history of common carriage. Thus, not only did the Title II Order rely on specific holdings that are at best ambiguous in their analogy to technical characteristics of broadband internet access service, but it failed to adequately appreciate key regulatory distinctions between traditional telephone service and broadband internet access service. Thus, for example, the fact that the adjunct-to-basic classification of directory assistance arose in the traditional telephone context likewise persuades us to give it relatively little weight here as an analogy to DNS, and we reject arguments to the contrary. 22. Caching. We also conclude that caching, a functionally integrated information processing component of broadband internet access service, provides the capability to perform functions that fall within the information service definition. As the record reflects, “[c]aching does much more than simply enable the user to obtain more rapid retrieval of information through the network; caching depends on complex algorithms to determine what information to store where and in what format.” This requires “extensive information processing, storing, retrieving, and transforming for much of the most popular content on the internet,” and as such, caching involves storing and retrieving capabilities required by the “information service” definition. The Court affirmed this view in Brand X, finding “reasonable” the “Commission's understanding” that internet service “facilitates access to third-party web pages by offering consumers the ability to store, or `cache,' popular content on local computer servers,” which constitutes “the `capability for . . . acquiring, [storing] . . . retrieving [and] utilizing information.' ” 23. We find that ISP-provided caching does not merely “manage” an ISP's broadband internet access service and underlying network, it enables and enhances consumers' access to and use of information online. The record shows that caching can be realized as part of a service, such as DNS, which is predominantly to the benefit of the user (DNS caching). We disagree with assertions in the record that suggest that ISP-provided caching is not a vital part of broadband internet access service offerings, as it may be stymied by the use of HTTPS encryption. Caching can also be realized in terms of content that can be accumulated by the ISP through non-confidential ( i.e., non-encrypted) retrieval of information from websites (Web caching). In this case, the user benefits from a rapid retrieval of information from a local cache or repository of information while the ISP benefits from less bandwidth resources used in the retrieval of data from one or more destinations. DNS and Web caching are functions provided as part and parcel of the broadband internet access service. When ISPs cache content from across the internet, they are not performing functions, like switching, that are instrumental to pure transmission, but instead storing third party content they select in servers in their own networks to enhance access to information. The record reflects that without caching, broadband internet access service would be a significantly inferior experience for the consumer, particularly for customers in remote areas, requiring additional time and network capacity for retrieval of information from the internet. Thus, because caching is useful to the consumer, we conclude that the Title II Order erred in incorrectly categorizing caching as falling within the telecommunications system management exception to the definition of “information service.” 24. In addition, the Title II Order' s failure to consider applicable MFJ precedent led to mistaken analogies when it concluded that caching fell within the statutory telecommunications management exception. In relevant precedent, the MFJ court observed that the information service restriction generally “prohibits the [BOCs] from `storing' and `retrieving' information,” but identified “quite distinct settings in which storage capabilities of the [BOCs] could be used in the information services market.” One of the categories of storage and retrieval identified by the court appears highly comparable to caching. That category involved BOC provision of “storage space in their gateways for databases created by others” such as “information service providers and end users,” making “communication more efficient by moving information closer to the end user, thereby reducing transmission costs.” This functionality—recognized as an information service by the MFJ court—appears highly analogous to caching, and lends historical support to our view that the caching functionality within broadband internet access service is best understood as rendering broadband internet access service an information service. The first category the court identified was “very short term storage,” including, among other things, “the basic packet switching function,” which “involves the breakdown of data or voice communications into small bits of information that are then collected and transmitted between nodes,” involving “constant storage, error checking, and retransmission, as required for accurate transmission.” Although the court was not entirely clear, it seemed to suggest that such functions were not information services under the MFJ. This category appears to bear little similarity to caching, however. The third category of “storage and retrieval” information service functions identified by the court would include the BOC's provision of “voice messaging, voice storage and retrieval, and electronic mail.” Because that category does not appear as analogous to caching as the category identified by the court and described above, nor was it relied upon in the Title II Order' s discussion of caching, we do not focus on that third category in our discussion here. 25. Ignoring that MFJ precedent, the Title II Order erred in seeking to analogize caching to “ `store and forward technology [used] in routing messages through the network as part of a basic service' ” mentioned in the Computer II Final Decision. In fact, consistent with the MFJ court's identification of distinct uses of storage and forwarding, the cited portion of the Computer II Final Decision recognized that “the kind of enhanced store and forward services that can be offered are many and varied.” In that regard, the Computer II Final Decision distinguished “[t]he offering of store and forward services” from “store and forward technology,” explaining that “[m]essage or packet switching, for example, is a store and forward technology that may be employed in providing basic service.” Reading that discussion in full context and in harmony with subsequent MFJ precedent, the reference in the Computer II Final Decision to “store and forward technology” appears better understood as mirroring a category of storage and retrieval of information that the MFJ court suggested was not an information service—in particular, “the basic packet switching function, . . . [which] involves the breakdown of data or voice communications into small bits of information that are then collected and transmitted between nodes.” That category of activity relied upon in the Title II Order thus actually appears to be barely or not at all analogous to caching. We instead find more persuasive the MFJ court's information service treatment of BOC provision of “storage space in their gateways for databases created by others” such as “information service providers and end users”—a distinct category of storage and retrieval functionality that is a close fit to caching. We are unpersuaded by claims that this MFJ precedent only is analogous to CDNs and not “transparent caching” based on asserted differences in how it is determined what content will be stored in each scenario. Although the factual scenario discussed in the MFJ anticipated end-users or information service providers electing what information to store, and that fact may have partially informed the court's decision whether to ultimately allow BOCs to provide that capability notwithstanding its classification as an information service, we do not read the underlying classification as turning on that issue. Further, in addition to the distinctions between caching and store-and-forward technology acknowledged even in this filing, Peha Dec. 7, 2017 Ex Parte Letter at 4, we find additional shortcomings in how the Title II Order relied on adjunct-to-basic precedent. b. ISPs' Service Offerings Inextricably Intertwine Information Processing Capabilities With Transmission 26. Having established that broadband internet access service has the information processing capabilities outlined in the definition of “information service,” the relevant inquiry is whether ISPs' broadband internet access service offerings make available information processing technology inextricably intertwined with transmission. Below we examine both how consumers perceive the offer of broadband internet access service, as well as the nature of the service actually offered by ISPs, and conclude that ISPs are best understood as offering a service that inextricably intertwines the information processing capabilities described above and transmission. 27. We begin by considering the ordinary customer's perception of the ISP's offer of broadband internet access service. As Brand X explained, “[i]t is common usage to describe what a company `offers' to a consumer as what the consumer perceives to be the integrated finished product.” ISPs generally market and provide information processing capabilities and transmission capability together as a single service. Therefore, it is not surprising that consumers perceive the offer of broadband internet access service to include more than mere transmission, and that customers want and pay for functionalities that go beyond mere transmission. As Cox explains, “[w]hile consumers also place significant weight on obtaining a reliable and fast internet connection, they view those attributes as a means of enabling these capabilities to interact with information online, not as ends in and of themselves.” Indeed, record evidence confirms that consumers highly value the capabilities their ISPs offer to acquire information from websites, utilize information on the internet, retrieve such information, and otherwise process such information. NHMC's argument, based on what it asserts to be a representative sample of consumer complaints filed with the Commission, is not persuasive. NHMC's methodology relied on Natural Language Processing (NLP) to determine words that co-occur in such complaints, and then used “iterative clustering algorithms” to “ma[p] connections among them.” Neither NHMC's methodology nor the representative extracts of the complaints NHMC submitted demonstrate that individual complaints about particular aspects of service reflect how a customer would perceive service offerings as a whole. Indeed, the sample of complaints attached by NHMC features a broad set of issues, ranging widely from questions about speed to “losing my internet connection,” “charg[ing] extra for your services,” “interrupt[ing] the service,” “bully[ing] me into share plans,” “Google arbitrarily engag[ing] in monopolistic practices,” “charg[ing] me modem rental fee,” or “basically no technical support.” We further note that to the extent that perceived speed is a common complaint, that does not mean consumers view broadband internet access service as a pure transmission service. A consumer's perceived speed for many activities (such as web browsing) depends on information-processing elements of the service like DNS and caching; indeed, caching's primary consumer benefit is allowing a more rapid retrieval of information from a local cache (increasing the perceived speed of a consumer's connection). Moreover, the Commission has never relied on such complaints to identify what a service is. And for good reason: We expect consumer complaints about problems with a service—not every aspect of it. Indeed, applying such a methodology would lead to absurd results: Should we redefine the public switched network based on the millions of robocall complaints we get each year or the rural-call-completion problems that we know are too prevalent? Of course not. 28. This view also accords with the Commission's historical understanding that “[e]nd users subscribing to . . . broadband internet access service expect to receive (and pay for) a finished, functionally integrated service that provides access to the internet. End users do not expect to receive (or pay for) two distinct services—both internet access service and a distinct transmission service, for example.” While the Title II Order dwells at length on the prominence of transmission speed in ISP marketing, it makes no effort to compare that emphasis to historical practice. In fact, ISPs have been highlighting transmission speed in their marketing materials since long before the Title II Order. The very first report on advanced telecommunication capability pursuant to Section 706(b) of the 1996 Act, released in 1999, cited ISPs' marketing of their internet access service speed. ISPs' inclusion of speed information in their marketing also was acknowledged by the Court in Brand X, which nonetheless upheld the Commission's information service classification as reasonable. Indeed, consideration of ISP marketing practices has been part of the backdrop of all of the Commission's decisions classifying broadband internet access service as an information service and thus cannot justify a departure from the historical classification of broadband internet access service as an information service. 29. The Title II Order' s reliance on ISP marketing also assumes that it provides a complete picture of what consumers perceive as the finished product. First, the record reflects that ISP marketing of broadband encompasses features beyond speed and reliability. Further, because all broadband internet access services rely on DNS and commonly also rely on caching by ISPs, to the extent that those capabilities, in themselves, do not provide a point of differentiation among services or providers, it would be unsurprising that ISPs did not feature them prominently in their marketing or advertising, particularly to audiences already familiar with broadband internet access service generally. Indeed, speed and reliability are not exclusive to telecommunications services; rather, the record reflects that speed and reliability are crucial attributes of an information service. As such, we reject assertions that speed and reliability are only characteristics of telecommunications services and further note that ISPs market these aspects because they can be differentiated, unlike DNS or caching. Consequently, the mere fact that broadband internet access service marketing often focuses on characteristics, such as transmission speed, by which services and providers can be differentiated sheds little to no light on whether consumers perceive broadband internet access service as inextricably intertwining that data transmission with information service capabilities. Neither the discussion of the consumer's perspective by Justice Scalia nor that in the Title II Order identifies good reasons to depart from the Commission's prior understanding that broadband internet access is a single, integrated information service. Justice Scalia contended that how customers perceive cable modem service is best understood by considering the services for which it would be a substitute—in his view at the time, dial-up internet access and digital subscriber line (DSL) service over telephone networks. However, dial-up internet access has substantially diminished in marketplace significance in the subsequent years. In addition, the legal compulsion for facilities-based carriers to offer broadband transmission on a common carrier basis was eliminated in 2005. Fixed and mobile wireless broadband internet access service have grown to play a much more prominent role in the broadband internet access service marketplace, along with satellite broadband internet access service, none of which ever was under a legal compulsion to offer broadband transmission on a common carrier basis—nor, prior to the Title II Order, were they interpreted as voluntarily doing so. Consequently, whatever might have been arguable at the time of Brand X, the service offerings in the marketplace as it developed thereafter provide no reason to expect that consumers “inevitabl[y]” would view broadband internet access service as involving “ both computing functionality and the physical pipe” as separate offerings based on comparisons to the likely alternatives. 30. Separate and distinct from our finding that an ISP “offers” an information service from the consumer's perspective, we find that as a factual matter, ISPs offer a single, inextricably intertwined information service. The record reflects that information processes must be combined with transmission in order for broadband internet access service to work, and it is the combined information processing capabilities and transmission functions that an ISP offers with broadband internet access service. Thus, even assuming that any individual consumer could perceive an ISP's offer of broadband internet access service as akin to a bare transmission service, the information processing capabilities that are actually offered as an integral part of the service make broadband internet access service an information service as defined by the Act. As such, we reject commenters' assertions that the primary function of ISPs is to simply transfer packets and not process information. 31. The inquiry called for by the relevant classification precedent focuses on the nature of the service offering the provider makes, rather than being limited to the functions within that offering that particular subscribers do, in fact, use or that third parties also provide. As the Commission recognized in the Cable Modem Order, internet access service was appropriately classified as an offering of the capabilities with the definition of an information service “regardless of whether subscribers use all of the functions provided as part of the service.” The Title II Order erroneously contended that, because functions like DNS and caching potentially could be provided by entities other than the ISP itself, those functions should not be understood as part of a single, integrated information service offered by ISPs. However, the fact that some consumers obtain these functionalities from third-party alternatives is not a basis for ignoring the capabilities that a broadband provider actually “offers.” The Title II Order gave no meaningful explanation why a contrary, narrower interpretation of “offer” was warranted other than, implicitly, its seemingly end-results driven effort to justify a telecommunications service classification of broadband internet access service. 32. Our findings today are consistent with classification precedent prior to the Title II Order, which consistently found that ISPs offer a single, integrated service. Although we find the pre-1996 Act classification precedent relevant to our classification of broadband internet access service, we reject the view that Congress would have expected classification under the 1996 Act's statutory definitions to be tied to the substantive common carrier transmission requirements imposed under those frameworks. We conclude that the best view of the text and structure of the Act undercuts arguments that Congress sought to preserve the substance of pre-1996 Act regulations through the definitions it adopted. Instead, where Congress sought to address substantive requirements akin to those in the MFJ and Computer Inquiries, it did so by adopting subjective obligations in the 1996 Act—even if not identical to the pre-1996 Act requirements—and subject to their own Congressionally specified standards for when and to what entities they apply. In addition, the wholesale service focus of substantive MFJ and Computer Inquiries common carrier transmission obligations also distinguishes them from the retail service we classify here, likewise undermining any claimed relevance of those pre-1996 Act transmission requirements to our classification decision. The Commission recognized, for example, that the transmission underlying broadband internet access required by the Computer Inquiries to be offered on an unbundled, common carrier basis and provided to ISPs was not a “retail” service within the meaning of Section 251(c)(4) resale requirements. Nor did such a common carrier transmission service itself enable access to the internet, even if purchased by end-users. By comparison, under the Computer Inquiries, the finished service offered to end-users relying on the required common carrier transmission as an input was regulated as an enhanced service, not a common carrier offering, even when offered by the facilities-based carrier's subsidiary. Given our focus here on the finished retail broadband internet access service, we see little relevance to prior regulatory requirements that were imposed to ensure competing providers had access to a wholesale input in the form of a compelled common carriage offering of bare transmission that did not itself provide internet access. Even the early classification analysis in the Stevens Report recognized that “[i]n offering service to end users” ISPs “do more than resell [ ] data transport services. They conjoin the data transport with data processing, information provision, and other computer-mediated offerings, thereby creating an information service.” In Brand X, the Court rejected claims that “[w]hen a consumer . . . accesses content provided by parties other than the cable company” that “consumer uses `pure transmission.' ” Subsequent Commission decisions involving other forms of broadband internet access likewise all concluded that the broadband internet access service was a single, integrated service that did not involve a stand-alone offering of telecommunications. Although parties have, over time, held various views regarding the proper classification of broadband internet access services, the mere fact that a party held such a view in the past, or holds such a view today, does not render a Commission decision confirming a particular view “moot,” since a private party's subjective view is not authoritative. The Court further found that “the high-speed transmission used to provide cable modem service is a functionally integrated component of that service because it transmits data only in connection with the further processing of information and is necessary to provide internet service.” This distinction makes broadband internet access service fundamentally different than standard telephone service, which the Supreme Court noted does not become an “information service” merely because its transmission service may be “trivially affected” by some additional capability such as voicemail. Where the addition of some further capability has appeared to have only a trivial effect on the nature of a service, the Commission has previously declined requests for reclassification. Due to the functionally integrated nature of broadband internet access service, however, we reject claims that those decisions call for a different approach than we adopt here. Likewise, the outcome in the Bureau-level Cisco WebEx Order accords with our approach, given the finding that the information service capabilities more than trivially affected the transmission capability in the scenario addressed there. Contrary to some arguments, the Bureau had no need to—and did not—address the classification of other service scenarios, and we reject arguments for a different classification approach that are premised on assumptions about how those unaddressed scenarios would have been analyzed or classified. The core, essential elements of these prior analyses of the functional nature of internet access remain persuasive as to broadband internet access service today. We adhere to that view notwithstanding arguments that some subset of the array of internet access uses identified in the Stevens Report or subsequent decisions either are no longer as commonly used, or occur more frequently today. Even at the time of the Cable Modem Order the Commission recognized the role of user-generated content, and its decision in no way hinged on distinctions in how retail customers of cable modem service used that service in that respect. 33. We disagree with commenters who assert that ISPs necessarily offer both an information service and a telecommunications service because broadband internet access service includes a transmission component. In providing broadband internet access service, an ISP makes use of telecommunications— i.e., it provides information-processing capabilities “via telecommunications”—but does not separately offer telecommunications on a stand-alone basis to the public. By definition, all information services accomplish their functions “via telecommunications,” and as such, broadband internet access service has always had a telecommunications component intrinsically intertwined with the computer processing, information provision, and computer interactivity capabilities an information service offers. We observe that placing information in IP packets does not change the form of information. We find that the transmission of IP packets is transmission of the user's choosing, and also agree that “[c]hanging the packet structure of an IP packet from IPv4 to IPv6” does not change the form of the information. As just one example, in support of its classification decision, the Title II Order notes that it is technically possible for a transmission component underlying broadband internet access service to be separated out and offered on a common carrier basis. The same would be equally true of many information services, however, given that the information service capabilities are, by definition, available “via telecommunications.” Indeed, service providers, who are in the best position to understand the inputs used in broadband internet access service, do not appear to dispute that the “via telecommunications” criteria is satisfied even if also arguing that they are not providing telecommunications to end-users. For example, ISPs typically transmit traffic between aggregation points on their network and the ISPs' connections with other networks. Whether self-provided by the ISP or purchased from a third party, that readily appears to be transmission between or among points selected by the ISP of traffic that the ISP has chosen to have carried by that transmission link. We reject as overbroad the claim that “a transmission is `telecommunications' within the meaning of 47 U.S.C. 153(30) only if the transmission is capable of communicating with all circuit switched devices on the PSTN or has the purpose of facilitating the use of the PSTN without altering its fundamental character as a telephone network.” This claim appears premised on incorporating Section 332's definition of a commercial mobile service (which must be “interconnected” with the “public switched network”) into Section 3 of the Act and drawing from pre-1996 Act precedent using an end-to-end analysis to determine the regulatory jurisdiction of communications traffic to inform the interpretation of the term “points.” But we find no evidence in the text of the statute that Congress intended to import the commercial mobile service definition from one section into another, and our precedent similarly does not countenance such an importation. Nor is the end-to-end analysis the only pre-1996 Act precedent from which the concept of “points” in the “telecommunications” definition might have been drawn so as to unambiguously foreclose our conclusion that “via telecommunications” is satisfied here. Such inclusion of a transmission component does not render broadband internet access services telecommunications services; if it did, the entire category of information services would be narrowed drastically. Because we find it more reasonable to conclude that at least some telecommunications is being used as an input into broadband internet access service—thereby satisfying the “via telecommunications” criteria—we need not further address the scope of the “telecommunications” definition in order to justify our classification of broadband internet access service as an information service. We thus do not comprehensively address other criticisms of the Title II Order' s interpretation and applications of the “telecommunications” definition, which potentially could have implications beyond the scope of issues we are considering in this proceeding. 34. The approach we adopt today best implements the Commission's long-standing view that Congress intended the definitions of “telecommunications service” and “information service” to be mutually exclusive ways to classify a given service. As the Brand X Court found, the term “offering” in the telecommunications service definition “can reasonably be read to mean a `stand-alone' offering of telecommunications.” Where, as in the case of broadband internet access services, a service involving transmission inextricably intertwines that transmission with information service capabilities—in the form of an integrated information service—there cannot be “a `stand-alone' offering of telecommunications” as required under that interpretation of the telecommunications service definition. This conclusion is true even if the information service could be said to involve the provision of telecommunications as a component of the service. The Commission's historical approach to internet access services carefully navigated that issue, while the Title II Order, by contrast, threatened to usher in a much more sweeping scope of “telecommunications services.” 35. The Title II Order interpretation stands in stark contrast to the Commission's historical classification precedent and the views of all Justices in Brand X. Beginning with the earliest classification decisions, the Commission found that transmission provided by ISPs outside the last mile was part of an integrated information service. The DSL transmission service previously required to be unbundled by the Computer Inquiries rules likewise was limited to the “last mile” connection between the end-user and the ISP. Nor did any Justice in Brand X contest the view that, beyond the last mile, cable operators were offering an information service. Indeed, the Title II Order' s broad interpretation of “telecommunications service” stands in contrast to the views of Justice Scalia himself, on which the Title II Order purports to rely. Justice Scalia was skeptical that a telecommunications service classification of cable modem service would lead to the classification of ISPs as telecommunications carriers based on the transmission underlying their “connect[ions] to other parts of the internet, including internet backbone providers.” Yet the Title II Order reached essentially that outcome. The Title II Order' s interpretation of the statutory definitions did not merely lead it to classify “last mile” transmission as a telecommunications service. Rather, under the view of the Title II Order, even the transmissions underlying an ISP's connections to other parts of the internet, including internet backbone providers, were part of the classified telecommunications service. Even if the Title II Order' s classification approach does not technically render the category of information services a nullity, the fact that its view of telecommunications services sweeps so much more broadly than previously considered possible provides significant support for our reading of the statute and the classification decision we make today. That the Commission previously identified policy concerns about internet traffic exchange says nothing about classification, and thus is not to the contrary. Nor did the Advanced Services proceedings identify interconnection obligations on providers of xDSL transmission as services necessary to ensure the provision of internet access. Instead, any interconnection obligations identified there were limited to interconnection between providers of common carrier xDSL transmission service and other telecommunications carriers (rather than providers of edge services or non-common carrier backbone services). The cited portion of the Advanced Services Remand Order does not even have anything to do with interconnection requirements or the scope of functions in an xDSL-based advanced service. Rather, it analyzed the jurisdiction of the traffic being carried over the service, which, under the traditional end-to-end analysis, was not limited in scope to any given service within a broader communications pathway. 36. In contrast, our approach leaves ample room for a meaningful range of “telecommunications services.” Historically, the Commission has distinguished service offerings that “always and necessarily combine” functions such as “computer processing, information provision, and computer interactivity with data transport, enabling end users to run a variety of applications such as email, and access web pages and newsgroups,” on the one hand, from services “that carriers and end users typically use [ ] for basic transmission purposes” on the other hand. Our interpretation thus stops far short of the view that “ every transmission of information becomes an information service.” Thus, an offering like broadband internet access service that “always and necessarily” includes integrated transmission and information service capabilities would be an information service. The distinction between services that “always and necessarily” include integrated transmission and information service capabilities and those that do not also highlights a critical difference between internet access service and the service addressed in precedent such as the Advanced Services Order. The transmission underlying internet access service that, prior to the Wireline Broadband Classification Order, carriers had been required by the Computer Inquiries to unbundle and offer as a bare transmission service on a common carrier basis to ensure its availability to competing enhanced service providers—and which did not itself provide internet access—is another specific example of a service that does not “always and necessarily” include integrated transmission and information service capabilities. The Commission naturally recognized at the time that the compelled common carriage offering of bare transmission was a telecommunications service, and we reject the view that such an acknowledgment is inconsistent with, or undercuts our reliance on, precedent classifying internet access service as an integrated information service. In addition, the discussion of xDSL advanced services in the Advanced Services Order cited by commenters addressed the transmission service generally. It did not purport to be focused specifically on the use of xDSL transmission in connection with internet access service, rather than addressing the classification of the stand-alone transmission service as a general matter. The Commission's historical interpretation thus gives full meaning to both “information service” and “telecommunications service” categories in the Act. 37. We reject assertions that the analysis we adopt today would necessarily mean that standard telephone service is likewise an information service. The record reflects that broadband internet access service is categorically different from standard telephone service in that it is “ designed with advanced features, protocols, and security measures so that it can integrate directly into electronic computer systems and enable users to electronically create, retrieve, modify and otherwise manipulate information stored on servers around the world.” Further, “[t]he dynamic network functionality enabling the internet connectivity provided by [broadband internet access services] is fundamentally different from the largely static one dimensional, transmission oriented Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) voice network.” This finding is consistent with past distinctions. Under pre-1996 Act MFJ precedent, for example, although the provision of time and weather services was an information service, when a BOC's traditional telephone service was used to call a third party time and weather service “the Operating Company does not `provide information services' within the meaning of section II(D) of the decree; it merely transmits a call under the tariff.” In other words, the fundamental nature of traditional telephone service, and the commonly-understood purpose for which traditional telephone service is designed and offered, is to provide basic transmission—a fact not changed by its incidental use, on occasion, to access information services. By contrast, the fundamental nature of broadband internet access service, and the commonly-understood purpose for which broadband internet access service is designed and offered, is to enable customers to generate, acquire, store, transform, process, retrieve, utilize, and make available information. In addition, broadband internet access service includes DNS and caching functionalities, as well as certain other information processing capabilities. As such, we reject assertions that, under the approach we adopt today, any telephone service would be an information service because voice customers can get access to either automated information services or a live person who can provide information. 38. Additionally, efforts to treat the Stevens Report as an outlier that should not have been followed in subsequent classification decisions—and should not be followed here—are ultimately unpersuasive. The clear recognition in the Stevens Report that the ISPs at issue were themselves providing data transmission as part of their offerings undercuts arguments seeking to distinguish the Stevens Report based on the theory that the transmission used to connect to ISPs typically involved common carrier services either directly (via a call to a dial-up ISP using traditional telephone service) or indirectly (with the ISP using common carrier broadband transmission as a wholesale input into its retail information service). While the extent of data transmission provided by the ISPs that were found to be offering information services in the Stevens Report might be incrementally less than the transmission provided by the ISPs dealt with in subsequent information service classification decisions, that appears to be at most a difference in degree, rather than a difference in kind, and the record does not demonstrate otherwise. Nor can the Stevens Report' s analysis and information service classification be distinguished on the grounds that the ISPs there generally did not own the facilities they used. Although the Stevens Report observed that the analysis of whether a single integrated service was being offered was “more complicated when it comes to offerings by facilities-based providers,” it did not prejudge the resolution of that question. Thus, there is no reason to simply assume that it was inappropriate for the Commission to build upon the Stevens Report precedent when analyzing service offerings from facilities-based providers beginning in the Cable Modem Order. Nor do commenters identify material technical differences when facilities ownership is involved that would mandate a different classification analysis. While the Stevens Report recognized that under Computer Inquires precedent “offerings by non-facilities-based providers combining communications and computing components should always be deemed enhanced,” had its analysis simply been carrying forward that approach most of its analysis would have been unnecessary (since internet access clearly did combine communications and computing components). Thus, whether or not the more extensive analysis set forth in the Stevens Report was necessary to find internet access provided by non-facilities-based ISPs to be an information service, that analysis cannot be said to be a mere relic of the Computer Inquiries approach to non-facilities based providers. Finally, our reliance on classification precedent does not rest on the Stevens Report alone, but draws from the full range of classification precedent, both pre- and post-1996 Act. This reliance notably includes not only the Commission's classification decisions, but the Supreme Court's subsequent analysis in Brand X. And although some commenters criticize the lack of express consideration of the possible application of the telecommunications management exception in the Stevens Report, our evaluation of the pre-1996 Act MFJ and Computer Inquiries precedent better accords with outcome of that Report and the subsequent classification decisions than it does with the Title II Order in that regard. We reject similar criticisms of other precedent for the same reason. 3. Other Provisions of the Act Support Broadband's Information Service Classification 39. We also find that other provisions of the Act support our conclusion that broadband internet access service is best classified as an information service. We do not assert that the language in Sections 230 and 231 is determinative of the information service classification; rather, we find it to be supportive of our analysis of the textual provisions at issue. As such, we find Public Knowledge's assertions that the Commission's reasoning “would overrule the Supreme Court's holding in Brand X . . . [in which] the Court ruled that the Communications Act does not make explicit the correct classification of BIAS” inapposite. For instance, Congress codified its view in Section 230(b)(2) of the Act, stating that it is the policy of the United States “to preserve the vibrant and competitive free market that presently exists for the internet and other interactive computer services, unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” This statement confirms that the free market approach that flows from classification as an information service is consistent with Congress's intent. In contrast, we find it hard to reconcile this statement in Section 230(b)(2) with a conclusion that Congress intended the Commission to subject broadband internet access service to common carrier regulation under Title II. 40. Additional provisions within Sections 230 and 231 of the Act lend further support to our interpretation. Section 230(f)(2) defines an interactive computer service to mean “ any information service, system, or access software provider that provides or enables computer access by multiple users to a computer server, including specifically a service or system that provides access to the Internet and such systems operated or services offered by libraries or educational institutions.” Thus, on its face, the plain language of this provision appears to reflect Congress' judgment that internet access service is an information service. 41. Section 230 states that an “information service” includes “a service or system that provides access to the internet,” and we disagree with commenters who read the definition of “interactive computer service” differently. Specifically, we disagree with commenters asserting that it is unclear whether the clause “including specifically a service . . . that provides access to the internet” modifies “information service” or some other noun phrase, such as “access software provider” or “system.” We think it a more reasonable interpretation that the phrase “service . . . that provides access to the internet” modifies the noun phrase “information service.” Similarly, we disagree that Section 230(f)(2) proves only “that there exist information services that provide access to the internet, not that all services that provide access to the internet are information services.” On the contrary, we agree with AT&T that “the formula `any X, including specifically a Y,' does logically imply that all Ys are Xs.” 42. Reliance on Section 230(f)(2) to inform the Commission's interpretations and applications of Titles I and II accords with widely accepted canons of statutory interpretation. The Supreme Court has recognized there is a “natural presumption that identical words used in different parts of the same act are intended to have the same meaning.” And there is nothing in the context of either section that overcomes the presumption. Indeed, the similarity of circumstances confirms the presumption of similar meaning, as the deregulatory approach to information services embodied in Titles I and II, as well as the deregulatory policy of Section 230, were all adopted as part of the 1996 Act. Thus, we disagree with the Title II Order' s argument that giving Section 230 its plain meaning would be “an oblique” way to “settle the regulatory status of broadband internet access.” On the contrary, we agree that “it is hardly `oblique' for Congress to confirm in Section 230 that internet access should be classified as an unregulated information service when elsewhere in the same legislation Congress codifies a definition of `information services' that was long understood to include gateway services such as internet access.” And while the USTelecom court did not find this definition determinative on the issue, we find that “it is nonetheless a strong indicator that Congress was more comfortable with the prevailing view that provision of internet access is not a telecommunications service, and should not be subject to the array of Title II statutory provisions.” We find inapplicable the USTelecom court's invocation of the principle that “Congress . . . does not alter the fundamental details of a regulatory scheme in vague terms or ancillary provisions.” Section 230 did not alter any fundamental details of Congress's regulatory scheme but was part and parcel of that scheme, and confirmed what follows from a plain reading of Title I—namely, that broadband internet access service meets the definition of an information service. The legislative history of Section 230 also lends support to the view that Congress did not intend the Commission to subject broadband internet access service to Title II regulation. The congressional record reflects that the drafters of Section 230 did “not wish to have a Federal Computer Commission with an army of bureaucrats regulating the internet.” We likewise reject arguments premised on the theory that we are treating definitions in Section 230 and 231 as dispositive, rather than relying on them to inform our understanding of Congress' intent as revealed by the text and structure of the Act more broadly. 43. Section 231, inserted into the Communications Act a year after the 1996 Act's passage, similarly lends support to our conclusion that broadband internet access service is an information service. It expressly states that “internet access service” “does not include telecommunications services,” but rather “means a service that enables users to access content, information, electronic mail, or other services offered over the internet, and may also include access to proprietary content, information, and other services as part of a package of services offered to consumers.” Further, the carve-outs in Section 231(b)(1)-(2) differentiate the provision of telecommunications services and the provision of internet access service. It is hard to imagine clearer statutory language. The Commission has consistently held that categories of telecommunications service and information service are mutually exclusive; thus, because it is an information service, internet access cannot be a telecommunications service. Our interpretation of “telecommunications service” and “information service” as mutually exclusive ways to classify a given service thus demonstrates the relevance of Section 231 notwithstanding that it does not expressly define broadband internet access service as an information service. On its face then, this language strongly supports our conclusion that, under the best reading of the statute, broadband internet access service is an information service, not a telecommunications service. Nothing in the text of Section 231 reveals that the use of “internet access service” there is limited to dial-up internet access. To the contrary, it would seem anomalous for Congress only to exempt entities providing dial-up internet access and not other forms of internet access from the prohibitions of Section 231(a). We thus are unpersuaded by arguments advocating a narrower interpretation of “internet access service” in Section 231. 44. We also find that the purposes of the 1996 Act are better served by classifying broadband internet access service as an information service. Congress passed the Telecommunications Act to “promote competition and reduce regulation.” Further, as a bipartisan group of Senators stated, “[n]othing in the 1996 Act or its legislative history suggests that Congress intended to alter the current classification of internet and other information services or to expand traditional telephone regulation to new and advanced services.” Or as Senator John McCain put it, “[i]t certainly was not Congress's intent in enacting the supposedly pro-competitive, deregulatory 1996 Act to extend the burdens of current Title II regulation to internet services, which historically have been excluded from regulation.” It stands these goals on their head for the Commission, as deployment of advanced services reaches the mainstream of Americans' lives, to perpetuate the very Title II regulatory edifice that the 1996 Act sought to dismantle. An information service classification will “reduce regulation” and preserve a free market “unfettered by Federal or State regulation.” 45. Finally, we observe that the structure of Title II appears to be a poor fit for broadband internet access service. Indeed, numerous Title II provisions explicitly assume that all telecommunications services are a telephone service. For example, Section 221 addresses special provisions related to telephone companies, Section 251 addresses the obligations of local exchange carriers and incumbent local exchange carriers, and Section 271 addresses limitations on Bell Operating Companies' provision of interLATA services. For example, to obtain authority to offer in-region interLATA services, the BOCs have to offer a number of functions of particular relevance to the provision of telephone service. Therefore, it is no surprise that the Title II Order found that many provisions of Title II were ill-suited to broadband internet access services, and the Commission was forced to, on its own motion, forbear either in whole or in part on a permanent or temporary basis from 30 separate sections of Title II as well as from other provisions of the Act and Commission rules. We find that the significant forbearance the Commission deemed necessary in the Title II Order strongly suggests that the regulatory framework of Title II, which was specifically designed to regulate telephone services, is unsuited for the dissimilar and dynamic broadband internet access service marketplace. B. Reinstating the Private Mobile Service Classification of Mobile Broadband Internet Access Service 46. Having determined that broadband internet access service, regardless of whether offered using fixed or mobile technologies, is an information service under the Act, we now address the appropriate classification of mobile broadband internet access service under Section 332 of the Act. We restore the prior longstanding definitions and interpretation of this section and conclude that mobile broadband internet access service should not be classified as a commercial mobile service or its functional equivalent. 47. Background. Section 332 of Title III, enacted by Congress as part of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993 (the Budget Act), provides a specific framework that applies to providers of “commercial mobile service.” The section defines “commercial mobile service” as: “any mobile service . . . that is provided for profit and makes interconnected service available (A) to the public or (B) to such classes of eligible users as to be effectively available to a substantial portion of the public, as specified by regulation by the Commission.” “Interconnected service,” in turn, is defined as “service that is interconnected with the public switched network (as such terms are defined by regulation by the Commission).” In 1994, the Commission adopted regulations implementing this section, codifying the definition of “commercial mobile service” under the term “commercial mobile radio service” (CMRS). Looking at the statute's text, structure, legislative history, and purpose, the Commission defined the “public switched network” as “[a]ny common carrier switched network, whether by wire or radio, including local exchange carriers, interexchange carriers, and mobile service providers, that use[s] the North American Numbering Plan in connection with the provision of switched services.” It defined “interconnected service” as “a service that gives subscribers the capability to communicate . . . [with] all other users on the public switched network.” 48. Section 332 distinguishes commercial mobile service from “private mobile service,” defined as “any mobile service . . . that is not a commercial mobile service or the functional equivalent of a commercial mobile service, as specified by regulation by the Commission.” In 1994, the Commission established its functional equivalence test, which starts with a presumption that “a mobile service that does not meet the definition of CMRS is a private mobile radio service.” Overcoming this presumption requires an analysis of a variety of factors to determine whether the mobile service in question is the functional equivalent of commercial mobile service, including “consumer demand for the service to determine whether the service is closely substitutable for a commercial mobile radio service; whether changes in price for the service under examination, or for the comparable commercial mobile radio service would prompt customers to change from one service to the other; and market research information identifying the targeted market for the service under review.” Emphasizing the high bar it had set, the Commission expected that “very few mobile services that do not meet the definition of CMRS will be a close substitute for a commercial mobile radio service.” We note that, in another Order adopted today, we are recodifying these factors under Section 20.3 of the Commission's rules, but not modifying their substance. 49. The Act treats providers of commercial mobile service as common carriers, and the legislative history of the 1996 Act suggests that Congress intended the definition of “telecommunications service” to include commercial mobile service. In contrast, the Act prohibits the Commission from treating providers of private mobile service as common carriers. 50. In 2007, the Commission found that wireless broadband internet access service was not a commercial mobile service because it did not meet the definition of an “interconnected service” under the Act and the Commission's rules. It found that wireless broadband internet access was not “interconnected” with the “public switched network” because it did not use the North American Numbering Plan, which limited “subscribers' ability to communicate to or receive communication from all users in the public switched network.” The Commission concluded that Section 332 and the Commission's rules “did not contemplate wireless broadband internet access service as provided today” and that a commercial mobile service “must still be interconnected with the local exchange or interexchange switched network as it evolves.” 51. In the Title II Order, the Commission reversed course. First, the Commission changed definitions of two key terms within the definition of commercial mobile service. It broadened the definition of the term “public switched network” to include services that use “public IP addresses.” And it redefined the term “interconnected service” by deleting the word “all” from the requirement that the service give subscribers the capability to communicate with “ all other users on the public switched network,” so that a service would be interconnected even if users of such a service could not communicate with all other users. By manipulating these definitions, the Commission engineered a conclusion that mobile broadband internet access was interconnected with the public switched network and was an interconnected service under Section 332. 52. Second, the Title II Order found that even if it had not changed the definitions, it could change the scope of the service to meet them. Specifically, the Commission found that “users have the `capability' . . . to communicate with NANP numbers using their broadband connection through the use of VoIP applications.” Accordingly it found that, by including services not offered by the mobile broadband internet access service provider as part of the service, mobile broadband internet access service would now meet the regulatory definition of “interconnected service” adopted in 1994. 53. Third, the Title II Order eschewed the functional equivalence test contained in the Commission's rules to find that mobile broadband internet access service was functionally equivalent to commercial mobile service. Rather than apply that test, the Commission reasoned that the two were functionally equivalent because “like commercial mobile service, [mobile broadband internet access service] is a widely available, for profit mobile service that offers mobile subscribers the capability to send and receive communications on their mobile device to and from the public.” 54. In the Internet Freedom Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) (82 FR 25568), the Commission proposed to “restore the meaning of `public switched network' under Section 332(d)(2) to its pre- Title II Order focus on the traditional public switched telephone network” and “to return to our prior definition of `interconnected service.' ” The Commission further proposed to return to the analysis of the Wireless Broadband Internet Access Order and find that mobile broadband internet access service was a private mobile service. Finally, it proposed to reconsider the Title II Order' s departure from the functional equivalence test codified in our rules. 55. Discussion. We find that the definitions of the terms “public switched network” and “interconnected service” that the Commission adopted in the 1994 Second CMRS Report and Order reflect the best reading of the Act, and accordingly, we readopt the earlier definitions. We further find that, under these definitions, mobile broadband internet access service is not a commercial mobile service. 56. We find that the Commission's original interpretation of “public switched network” was more consistent with the ordinary meaning and commonly understood definition of the term and with Commission precedent. On multiple prior occasions before Section 332(d)(2) was enacted, the Commission used the term “public switched network” to refer to the traditional public switched telephone network. In 1981, for example, the Commission noted that “the public switched network interconnects all telephones in the country.” In 1992, the Commission described its cellular service policy as “encourag[ing] the creation of a nationwide, seamless system, interconnected with the public switched network so that cellular and landline telephone customers can communicate with each other on a universal basis.” Courts also used the term “public switched network” when referring to the traditional telephone network. Based on this history of usage of the term, the Commission, in 1994, tied its definition of the term “public switched network” to the traditional switched telephone network. We find this approach appropriately reflects the fundamental canon of statutory construction that “unless otherwise defined, words will be interpreted as taking their ordinary, contemporary, common meaning.” We find that the legislative history of the Budget Act further supports this view. One commenter notes that the Budget Act conferees chose the Senate version of the relevant statutory definitions, including the use of the term “public switched network,” over the House version, which used the term “public switched telephone network,” and argues that Congress thereby rejected the latter term. We note, however, that the conferees also expressly identified the substantive differences between the House and Senate versions of the definitions, and notably absent from their list was any contrast between the Senate's use of “public switched network” and the House's use of “public switched telephone network,” suggesting that the conferees did not view the two terms as a significant difference. 57. We also find that the Commission's prior interpretation is more consistent with the text of Section 332(d)(2), in which Congress provided that commercial mobile service must provide a service that is interconnected with “ the public switched network.” We find that the use of the definite article “the” and singular term “network” shows that Congress intended “public switched network” to mean a single, integrated network. We therefore agree with commenters who argue that it was not meant to encompass multiple networks whose users cannot necessarily communicate or receive communications across networks. Consistent with Congress's directive to define “ the public switched network,” the restored definition reflects that the public switched network is a singular network that “must still be interconnected with the local exchange or interexchange switched network as it evolves,” as opposed to multiple networks that need not be connected to the public telephone network. That the Commission's original interpretation better reflects Congressional intent is further evidenced by the fact that, although Congress has amended the Communications Act and Section 332 on multiple occasions since the Commission defined the term, it has never changed the Commission's interpretation. As we further discuss elsewhere in connection with the term “interconnected service,” we find the best interpretation is to classify a service under Section 332 based solely on the nature of the service offered. Even if we were to consider such applications, however, we find that the public switched telephone network and the internet are and will continue to be distinct and separate networks, and cannot be considered a singular, integrated network as intended by the term “the public switched network.” The deployment of the Internet of Things (IoT), for example, will mean a dramatic increase in the number of non-VoIP-capable end-points, such as IP-enabled televisions, washing machines, and thermostats, and other smart devices. 58. We also restore the definition of “interconnected service” that existed prior to the Title II Order. Prior to that Order, the term was defined under the Commission's rules as a service “that gives subscribers the capability to communicate to or receive communication from all other users on the public switched network.” The Title II Order modified this definition by deleting the word “all,” finding that mobile broadband internet access service should still be considered an interconnected service even if it only enabled users to communicate with “some” other users of the public switched network rather than all. We agree with commenters who argue that the best reading of “interconnected service” is one that enables communication between its users and all other users of the public switched network. This reading ensures that the public switched network remains the single, integrated network that we find Congress intended in Section 332(d)(2), as reflected in the statutory definition of “interconnected service” as one that is interconnected with “the public switched network.” The Title II Order rejected this reading on the ground that the Commission has previously recognized that interconnected services may be limited in certain ways. While an interconnected service is required to provide its users with the capability to communicate with or receive communication from all other users of the public switched network, the Commission has permitted an interconnected service to restrict access to the public switched network in certain limited ways (such as the blocking of 900 numbers). This limited exception to general access has existed since the original definition of the term “interconnected service” was adopted, and the record does not demonstrate that it has caused confusion or misunderstandings about what services may be considered interconnected. Accordingly, we will continue to apply the definition of “interconnected service” in this fashion, and we see no need to codify any language further clarifying the exception. We agree with Verizon, however, that “[t]here is a massive difference between limited, targeted restrictions that deny access to certain points on the network and the situation envisioned by the Title II Order, where millions of users on what is ostensibly the same network are incapable of reaching each other.” 59. Some commenters who argue that the Title II Order' s revised definitions should be maintained point to Congress's delegation of interpretational authority to the Commission and the Commission's previous position that it could define the public switched network based on new technology and consumer demand. In defining the terms “public switched network” and “interconnected service” in the Second CMRS Report and Order, however, the Commission recognized that commercial mobile service must still be interconnected with the local exchange or interexchange switched network, and it stated that “any switched common carrier service that is interconnected with the traditional local exchange or interexchange switched network will be defined as part of that network for purposes of our definition of `commercial mobile radio services.' ” We disagree with commenters arguing that, by not including IP addresses in the definition of the public switched network, the Commission would be failing to recognize the evolution of mobile network technologies that have blurred the lines between circuit switched and packet switched networks. The Commission's original decision properly reflects that the public switched network should not be defined in a static way and should reflect that the public switched network is continuously growing and changing, but also ensures that, as it grows and evolves, the public switched network remains a single integrated network incorporating the traditional local and interexchange telephone networks and enabling users to send or receive messages to or from all other users. Further, although the Title II Order found that the revised definitions adopted at that time were warranted as better reflecting current technological developments, including the “rapidly growing and virtually universal use of mobile broadband service” and the “universal access provided . . . by and to mobile broadband,” the Commission expressly noted that its determination was “a policy judgment that section 332(d) expressly delegated to the Commission, consistent with its broad spectrum management authority under Title III.” We find that this analysis places undue weight on the wide availability of a mobile service, as being effectively available to a substantial portion of the public is merely one of the definitional criteria. The Commission found that the updated definitions would be consistent with Congress's intent to create a symmetrical regulatory framework among mobile services that were similarly “broadly available” to the public. While we agree that Congress intended, in adopting Section 332, to regulate similar mobile services symmetrically, we do not believe that Congress intended for the Commission to regulate mobile services symmetrically simply because they are similarly “broadly available.” First, being “effectively available to a substantial portion of the public” is a necessary, but not sufficient, requirement for classification as commercial mobile service. Second, as noted, Congress set as the touchstone for regulatory symmetry only those mobile services that are “functionally equivalent.” In light of definitional analysis discussed above, as well as the public policy considerations that we have found to support our decision to classify broadband internet access service as an information service, we find under the same authority that such developments do not persuade us to retain the modified definitions. 60. We find that mobile broadband internet access service does not meet the regulatory definition of “interconnected service” that the Commission originally adopted in 1994 and which we readopt today, and therefore it does not meet the definition of commercial mobile service. As the Commission found in the Wireless Broadband Internet Access Order, “[m]obile wireless broadband Internet access service in and of itself does not provide the capability to communicate with all users of the public switched network” because it does “not use the North American Numbering Plan to access the Internet, which limits subscribers' ability to communicate to or receive communications from all users in the public switched network.” Accordingly, it is “not an `interconnected service' as the Commission has defined the term in the context of section 332.” 61. We disagree with the conclusion in the Title II Order that, because an end user can use a separate application or service that rides on top of the broadband internet access service for interconnected communications, mobile broadband internet access service meets the definition of “interconnected service.” We find that the definition of “interconnected service” focuses on the characteristics of the offered mobile service itself. Thus, the service in question must itself provide interconnection to the public switched network using the NANP to be considered an interconnected service. Our interpretation is consistent with Commission precedent that, prior to the Title II Order, had classified a service based on the nature of the service itself. This interpretation is also consistent with Section 332(d)(1), which defines commercial mobile service as a service that itself “makes interconnected service available . . . to the public,” and with Section 332(d)(2), which defines “interconnected service” as “service that is interconnected with the public switched network.” These statutory definitions focus on the functions of the service itself rather than “whether the service allows consumers to acquire other services that bridge the gap to the telephone network.” Thus, we are not persuaded by arguments that “applications such as Google Voice reflect the fully interconnected nature of the mobile broadband and legacy telephone networks.” Our determination reflects that the relevant service must itself be an “interconnected service,” and not merely a capability to acquire interconnection. We further note that viewing broadband internet access service as a distinct service from application layer services that may be accessed by it, even if the applications are pre-installed in the mobile device offered by the provider, ensures that similar mobile broadband internet access services are not regulated in a disparate fashion based on what applications a particular provider chooses to install in their offered devices. This is consistent with the fundamental purpose under Section 332 of regulatory symmetry between similar mobile services, and also avoids regulatory inconsistencies that would result when mobile devices are brought to a particular service provider by the consumer that do not include the provider's choice of pre-installed apps. While OTI New America argues that the need to obtain such apps to make an interconnected call does not make mobile broadband internet access service different from traditional telephone service, which has always required customer premises equipment to complete an interconnected call, we find the analogy inapt. With traditional CMRS, even where consumers obtain their premises equipment or mobile devices separately, the function of interconnection is provided by the purchased mobile service itself. Because the focus is solely on the relevant service provided, we also disagree that physical connections between networks, in and of themselves, establish that the relevant services are interconnected, and we further disagree that mobile broadband internet access service should be considered an interconnected service simply because a separate interconnected voice service may be provided using the same packet-switched network layer. 62. Consistent with the Commission's analysis in the Wireless Broadband Internet Access Order, the fact that “consumers are now able to use a variety of Internet-enabled applications that allow them to send calls and texts to NANP end-points” does not make mobile broadband internet access service itself an interconnected service as defined by our rules. The increased use and availability of mobile VoIP applications does not change the fact that mobile broadband internet access as a core service is distinct from the service capabilities offered by applications (whether installed by a user or hardware manufacturer) that may ride on top of it. When viewed as a distinct service, it is apparent that today's mobile broadband internet access service itself does not enable users to reach NANP telephone numbers and therefore cannot be considered an interconnected service. We do not here address whether IP-based services or applications such as Wi-Fi Calling or VoLTE would meet the definition of “interconnected service” under Section 332 and the Commission's rules. We disagree with OTI New America's argument that the growing availability of Wi-Fi Calling provided by mobile carriers that also offer mobile broadband internet access service supports the classification of mobile broadband internet access service as a commercial mobile service. The two are distinct services and subject to separate classification determinations. Similarly, even if providers are increasingly offering voice service and mobile broadband internet access service together, this does not support classifying and regulating the latter in the same way as the former. Providers have long offered multiple services of mixed classification, subject to the rule that they are regulated as common carriers to the extent they offer services that are subject to Title II regulation. 63. Moreover, in light of the determination above that mobile broadband internet access service should be restored to its classification as an information service, and consistent with our findings today that reinstating this classification will serve the public interest, we also find that it will serve the public interest for the Commission to exercise its statutory authority to return to its original conclusion that mobile broadband internet access is not a commercial mobile service. We note that commenters who support the Title II Order's revised definition of “public switched network” do not dispute that Congress expressly delegated authority to the Commission to define the key terms, i.e., “public switched network” and “interconnected service.” No one disputes that, consistent with the Commission's previous findings, if mobile broadband internet access service were a commercial mobile service for purposes of Section 332 and were also classified as an information service, such a regulatory framework could lead to contradictory and absurd results. Among these problems, as the Commission explained in 2007, is that a contrary reading of the Act would result in an internal contradiction within the statutory framework, because Section 332 would require that the service provider be treated as a common carrier insofar as it provides mobile wireless broadband internet access service, while Section 3 clearly would prohibit the application of common carrier regulation of such a service provider's provision of that service. Indeed, the Title II Order, like the 2007 Wireless Broadband Internet Access Order, recognized and sought to avoid the significant problems in construing Section 332 in a manner that set up this “statutory contradiction” with the scope of Title II. Construing the CMRS definition to exclude mobile broadband internet access service as an information service similarly avoids this contradiction, furthers the Act's overall intent to allow information services to develop free from common carrier regulations, and is consistent with the public policy analysis in connection with our determination to reclassify mobile broadband internet access as an information service. Further, it avoids the absurd result of singling out mobile providers of broadband internet access service for such common carrier regulation while freeing fixed broadband internet access services from such regulation, notwithstanding that, as discussed elsewhere in this Order, there is generally greater competition in the provision of mobile broadband internet access service than in fixed broadband internet access service. We note that wireless services similar to mobile broadband internet access service were not available in the market place in 1993 when Congress adopted Section 332 or, in 1996, when Congress adopted the Section 3 definition of “telecommunication carrier.” 64. In addition to finding that mobile broadband internet access is not a commercial mobile service, we also adopt our proposal to reconsider the Commission's analysis regarding functional equivalence in the Title II Order. For the same reasons discussed below with respect to our authority to revisit the classification of broadband internet access service, we disagree with arguments regarding limits on the Commission's ability to revisit the Title II Order' s findings regarding functional equivalence. In addition, we note that the Title II Order, in reaching the conclusion that mobile broadband internet access was a commercial mobile service, relied in part on the need to avoid a statutory contradiction with its determination that the service was a telecommunications service. Given our decision to restore the original classification of mobile broadband internet access service as an information service, this change additionally warrants revisiting our conclusions with regard to the classification of mobile broadband internet access service under Section 332. We find that the test for functional equivalence adopted in the Second CMRS Report and Order reflects the best interpretation of Section 332. Under this test, a variety of factors will be evaluated to make a determination whether the mobile service in question is the functional equivalent of a commercial mobile radio service, including: Consumer demand for the service to determine whether the service is closely substitutable for a commercial mobile radio service; whether changes in price for the service under examination, or for the comparable commercial mobile radio service would prompt customers to change from one service to the other; and market research information identifying the targeted market for the service under review. In contrast, as noted above, the Title II Order based its finding of functional equivalence on the notion that “like commercial mobile service, [mobile broadband Internet access] is a widely available, for profit mobile service that offers mobile subscribers the capability to send and receive communications on their mobile device to and from the public.” Commenters who support the classification of mobile broadband internet access service as a commercial mobile service similarly contend that mobile broadband internet access service shares no similarities with other private mobile services such as taxi dispatch services and that, in contrast, “there is no networked service more open, interconnected, and universally offered than mobile broadband Internet access service.” We note that the statute directs us to determine whether mobile broadband internet access is functionally equivalent to a commercial mobile service, not whether it is functionally dissimilar from certain systems classified as private mobile. 65. We believe the test of functional equivalence adopted in the Second CMRS Report and Order hews much more faithfully to the intent of Congress than the approach applied in the Title II Order or the analyses in the record focusing on the extent of service availability. If Congress meant for widespread public access to a widely used service to be the determining factor for what is “functionally equivalent” to a commercial mobile service, it would not have included being “interconnected with the public switched network” in the statutory definition of the service. Indeed, the relevant House Report, in describing “private carriers” that under the current law were offering service “[f]unctionally . . . indistinguishable” from carriers classified as common carriers, highlighted that these private carriers were offering services interconnected with the public switched network. Although the Commission has discretion to determine whether services are functionally equivalent, we find that the Title II Order' s reliance on the public's “ubiquitous access” to mobile broadband internet access service alone was insufficient to establish functional equivalency. In contrast, the test established in the Second CMRS Report and Order provides a thorough consideration of factors that are indicative of whether a service is closely substitutable in the eyes of consumers for a commercial mobile service. 66. Applying the test adopted by the Commission in the Second CMRS Report and Order, we find that mobile broadband internet access service today is not the functional equivalent of commercial mobile service as defined by the Commission. We note again that, under this test, services not meeting the definition of commercial mobile se [Text truncated at 120,000 characters. The full text is on the page linked above.] --- Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/documents/fr%3A2018-03464. Public record. Not legal advice.