In the U.S. Supreme Court case Verizon Communications Inc. v. Federal Communications Commission, Verizon Communications argued that it was wrong and unreasonable for the Federal Communications Commission to regulate and set leasing rates for networks. Ultimately, the January 14 decision determined that the Federal Communications Commission can effectively set rates charged by the service provider for leased items that are completely unrelated to the provider's investment. The Federal Communications Commission may also require service providers to combine certain elements of their networks at the customer's or user's request. However, when it comes to net neutrality, the Federal Communications Commission does not have the authority to enforce those rules. This decision stems from the Telecommunications Act of 1996 which gives the Federal Communications Commission the ability to set standard leasing rates with nearly infinite flexibility. However, Verizon successfully argued that the Federal Communications Commission is not authorized to require a state commission to set rates by local exchange carriers for leasing network elements to competitive local exchange carriers. Essentially three main topics were focused on: pricing rules for disaggregated network elements; whether the exclusion of past costs constitutes government taking; and thirdly what are the rules for combining the elements of the network. A deeper look at the Telecommunications Act of 1996 gives us a better understanding of what kind of authoritative power the Federal Communications Commission actually has. As regards local stock exchange operators, the law provides the following: "The obligation to provide to any telecommunications operator who requests it...... half of the card ......y of any future regulation of the Internet. It is also important to note that all of this could have been avoided if the Federal Communications Commission had the foresight to call broadband providers "common carriers". the Federal Communications Commission has no authority to impose or enforce rules that would favor the free market against the politically and economically powerful network provider gov/telecom.html http://www.freepress.net/blog/2014/. 01/22/decoding-net-neutrality-user-friendly-explanation-verizon-v-fcc-and-its-impact http:// www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~raylin/whatisnetneutrality.htmhttp://legal- dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Common+carrier