deral authority, several municipal regulatory authorities attempted to exert jurisdiction over cable modem systems, either by mandating access to those systems by municipal ordinance¹3 or as a condition for the transfer of licenses needed to complete the wave of major mergers that swept through the cable industry between 1999 and 2002. 14 This municipal- based strategy was soon cut short by a series of judicial decisions holding that federal law prevented municipal franchising authorities from exercising jurisdiction over cable modem systems. 15 The FCC finally addressed the proper regulatory classification of cable modem service in its 2002 Cable Modem Declaratory Ruling, in which it determined that cable modem service was an interstate "information service" that fell outside both the common carriage regulations established under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934 to govern telecommunications services and the regulatory regime established by Title VI to govern cable television services. Instead, cable modem systems fell within the FCC's general rulemaking authority under the agency's Title I ancillary jurisdiction. In exercising this ancillary jurisdiction, the FCC declined to impose the tariffing and unbundling requirements created by the Computer Inquiries to cable modem systems, noting that the agency previously "has applied these obligations only to traditional wireline services and facilities, and has never applied them to information services provided over cable facilities" (FCC 2002c, pp. 4820-39). These aspects of the FCC's decision were sustained by the Supreme Court's 2005 decision in Brand X (545 U.S. at 1001). Declaring that cable modem systems constituted information services did not resolve exactly how cable modem systems would be regulated. On the contrary, the FCC specifically sought comment on what, if any, access requirements it should impose on cable modem service. Also, concerned that a patchwork of inconsis- tent state and local regulation could discourage investment and innovation, 