In early August, the 6th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled the FCC had no authority to prevent states from imposing restrictions on municipal internet.
This was a result of the FCC stepping in last year in an effort to "remove barriers to broadband investment and competition.
However, the courts sided with the states, which said that the FCC's order impeded on state rights.
In the end, this ruling clearly favored firmly entrenched big brand operators like Time Warner Cable, Comcast, and ATT, which lobbied hard to keep competition at bay.
The federal ruling specifically barred municipal internet providers from offering service outside of their city limits, denying them from providing service to under-served communities.
The fallout from the federal court's rejection of the FCC order to extend a lifeline to municipal internet providers has claimed another victim.
The small community of Pinetops, North Carolina -- population 1,300 -- will soon have its gigabit internet connection shut off.
Pinetops has been the recipient of Greenlight internet service, which is provided by the neighboring town of Wilson.
The town of Wilson has been providing electric power to Pinetops for the past 40 years, and had already deployed fiber through the town in order to bolster its smart grid initiative.
What's infuriating to the Wilson City Council and to the Pinetop residents that will lose their high-speed service is that the connections are already in place.
There's no logical reason why they should be cut off, but state laws and the lobbyists supporting those laws have deemed what Greenlight is doing illegal.
Provide power to a neighboring town -- sure that's OK. Provide better internet to a neighboring town -- lawsuit.
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