Pennsylvania PUC Asks To Pull Petition at FCC After Favorable Ruling on AT&T-Core Dial-up Internet Traffic Fight

of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which granted a PPUC appeal and overturned a U.S. district court ruling that sided with AT&T. “The Third Circuit decision addressed and resolved the controversy discussed in the petition, thereby rending the instant Petition moot,” the PPUC said in a request Wednesday in FCC docket 14-70. The PPUC had ruled in Core’s favor on its efforts to bill AT&T for terminating phone calls from AT&T’s customers to Core’s ISP customers from 2004 to 2009. Asserting, among other arguments, that dial-up Internet traffic was the exclusive domain of the FCC, AT&T subsequently persuaded the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to grant it summary judgment on the grounds that the PPUC lacked jurisdiction. The PPUC then appealed to the 3rd Circuit and filed its petition at the FCC. The 3rd Circuit ruled in favor of the PPUC on Nov. 25. “Because we find that the FCC’s jurisdiction over local ISP-bound traffic is not exclusive and the PPUC orders did not conflict with federal law, we will vacate the judgment of the District Court and remand this case for entry of judgment in favor of Core and the members of the PPUC,” a three-judge 3rd Circuit panel said in its opinion, which also found AT&T's other arguments unconvincing.