Update: Court Gives Each Side 20 Minutes in Net Neutrality Case

By John Eggerton
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C Circuit has given each side 20 minutes to argue their cases in Verizon's challenge to the FCC's Open Internet order.

That came in a revision of the court's original order issued earlier Thursday, in which it gave each side 25 minutes, but gave Verizon 15 minutes and MetroPCS 10 even though MetroPCS dropped its suit.

The court conceded it had erred and said it was reissuing the order, which it promptly did. There was no explanation of why the time was cut back to 20 minutes a side.

If past is prologue, the judges will allow quite a bit of leeway with those times. One lawyer familiar with the case suggested each side could wind up with as much as 45 minutes to make their case when

Oral argument is set for Sept. 9.

John Eggerton
John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.