A US federal appeals court has upheld the concept of net neutrality, dealing a major blow to broadband providers who wished to establish a tiered system of internet access.

On Tuesday, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit handed down its ruling (viewable in full here) upholding the Federal Communications Commission’s 2015 Open Internet Order classifying internet service providers as a public utility subject to the same type of rules as other essential communications services, such as the telephone.

Providers like AT&T and industry associations had filed their lawsuit based on their desire to offer higher traffic speeds to deep-pocketed customers, while relegating less wealthy website operators to the internet’s slow lane. The ISPs also claimed the right to block access to sites they found disagreeable.

Supporters of net neutrality argued that equal access to high-speed internet was integral to the ability of small startup firms to catch on with consumers, and that today’s internet giants like Facebook and Google wouldn’t have been able to attain such heights had they faced such obstacles.