National Cable & Telecommunications Assn. v. Brand X Internet Services

delivered the opinion of the Court.

Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, 48 Stat. 1064, as amended, 47 U. S. C. § 151 et seq., subjects all providers of “telecommunications servicie]” to mandatory common-carrier regulation, § 153(44). In the order under review, the *974Federal Communications Commission concluded that cable companies that sell broadband Internet service do not provide “telecommunications servic[ej” as the Communications Act defines that term, and hence are exempt from mandatory common-carrier regulation under Title II. We must decide whether that conclusion is a lawful construction of the Communications Act under Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., 467 U. S. 837 (1984), and the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U. S. C. § 551 et seq. We hold that it is.

I

The traditional means by which consumers in the United States access the network of interconnected computers that make up the Internet is through “dial-up” connections provided over local telephone facilities. See 345 F. 3d 1120, 1123-1124 (CA9 2003) (cases below); In re Inquiry Concerning High-Speed Access to the Internet Over Cable and Other Facilities, 17 FCC Red. 4798, 4802-4803, ¶ 9 (2002) (hereinafter Declaratory Ruling). Using these connections, consumers access the Internet by making calls with computer modems through the telephone wires owned by local phone companies. See Verizon Communications Inc. v. FCC, 535 U. S. 467, 489-490 (2002) (describing the physical structure of a local telephone exchange). Internet service providers (ISPs), in turn, link those calls to the Internet network, not only by providing a physical connection, but also by offering consumers the ability to translate raw Internet data into information they may both view on their personal computers and transmit to other computers connected to the Internet. See In re Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service, 13 FCC Red. 11501, 11531, ¶63 (1998) (hereinafter Universal Service Report or Report); P. Huber, M. Kellogg, & J. Thorne, Federal Telecommunications Law 988 (2d ed. 1999) (hereinafter Huber); 345 F. 3d, at 1123-1124. Technological limitations of local telephone wires, however, retard the speed at which data from the Internet may be transmitted *975through end users’ dial-up connections. Dial-up connections are therefore known as “narrowband,” or slower speed, connections.

“Broadband” Internet service, by contrast, transmits data at much higher speeds. There are two principal kinds of broadband Internet service: cable modem service and Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) service. Cable modem service transmits data between the Internet and users’ computers via the network of television cable lines owned by cable companies. See id., at 1124. DSL service provides high-speed access using the local telephone wires owned by local telephone companies. See WorldCom, Inc. v. FCC, 246 F. 3d 690, 692 (CADC 2001) (describing DSL technology). Cable companies and telephone companies can either provide Internet access directly to consumers, thus acting as ISPs themselves, or can lease their transmission facilities to independent ISPs that then use the facilities to provide consumers with Internet access. Other ways of transmitting high-speed Internet data into homes, including terrestrial- and satellite-based wireless networks, are also emerging. Declaratory Ruling 4802, ¶ 6.

II

At issue in these cases is the proper regulatory classification under the Communications Act of broadband cable Internet service. The Act, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, 110 Stat. 56, defines two categories of regulated entities relevant to these cases: telecommunications carriers and information-service providers. The Act regulates telecommunications carriers, but not information-service providers, as common carriers. Telecommunications carriers, for example, must charge just and reasonable, nondiscriminatory rates to their customers, 47 U. S. C. §§201-209, design their systems so that other carriers can interconnect with their communications networks, § 251(a)(1), and contribute to the federal “universal service” fund, § 254(d). *976These provisions are mandatory, but the Commission must forbear from applying them if it determines that the public interest requires it. §§ 160(a), (b). Information-service providers, by contrast, are not subject to mandatory common-carrier regulation under Title II, though the Commission has jurisdiction to impose additional regulatory obligations under its Title I ancillary jurisdiction to regulate interstate and foreign communications, see §§ 151-161.

These two statutory classifications originated in the late 1970’s, as the Commission developed rules to regulate data-processing services offered over telephone wires. That regime, the “Computer II” rules, distinguished between “basic” service (like telephone service) and “enhanced” service (computer-processing service offered over telephone lines). In re Amendment of Section 64-702 of the Commission’s Rules and Regulations (Second Computer Inquiry), 77 F.C.C. 2d 384, 417-423, ¶¶86-101 (1980) (hereinafter. Computer II Order). The Computer II rules defined both basic and enhanced services by reference to how the consumer perceives the service being offered.

In particular, the Commission defined “basic service” as “a pure transmission capability over a communications path that is virtually transparent in terms of its interaction with customer supplied information.” Id., at 420, ¶96. By “pure” or “transparent” transmission, the Commission meant a communications path that enabled the consumer to transmit an ordinary-language message to another point, with no computer processing or storage of the information, other than the processing or storage needed to convert the message into electronic form and then back into ordinary language for purposes of transmitting it over the network— such as via a telephone or a facsimile. Id., at 419-420, ¶¶ 94-95. Basic service was subject to common-carrier regulation. Id., at 428, ¶ 114.

“[Ejnhanced service,” however, was service in which “computer processing applications [were] used to act on the *977content, code, protocol, and other aspects of the subscriber’s information,” such as voice and data storage services, id., at 420-421, ¶ 97, as well as “protocol conversion” (i. e., ability to communicate between networks that employ different data-transmission formats), id., at 421-422, ¶99. By contrast to basic service, the Commission decided not to subject providers of enhanced service, even enhanced service offered via transmission wires, to Title II common-carrier regulation. Id., at 428-432, ¶¶ 115-123. The Commission explained that it was unwise to subject enhanced service to common-carrier regulation given the “fast-moving, competitive market” in which they were offered. Id., at 434, ¶ 129.

The definitions of the terms “telecommunications service” and “information service” established by the 1996 Act are similar to the Computer II basic- and enhanced-service classifications. “Telecommunications service” — the analog to basic service — is “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public... regardless of the facilities used.” 47 U. S. C. § 153(46). “Telecommunications” is “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.” § 153(43). “Telecommunications carrier[s]” — those subjected to mandatory Title II common-carrier regulation — are defined as “provider^] of telecommunications services.” §153(44). And “information service” — the analog to enhanced service — is “the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications . .. .” § 153(20).

In September 2000, the Commission initiated a rulemaking proceeding to, among other things, apply these classifications to cable companies that offer broadband Internet service directly to consumers. In March 2002, that rulemaking culminated in the Declaratory Ruling under review in these cases. In the Declaratory Ruling, the Commission con-*978eluded that broadband Internet service provided by cable companies is an “information service” but not a “telecommunications service” under the Act, and therefore not subject to mandatory Title II common-carrier regulation. In support of this conclusion, the Commission relied heavily on its Universal Service Report See Declaratory Ruling 4821-4822, ¶¶ 36-37 (citing Universal Service Report). The Universal Service Report classified “non-facilities-based” ISPs— those that do not own the transmission facilities they use to connect the end user to the Internet — solely as information-service providers. See Universal Service Report 11533, ¶67. Unlike those ISPs, cable companies own the cable lines they use to provide Internet access. Nevertheless, in the Declaratory Ruling, the Commission found no basis in the statutory definitions for treating cable companies differently from non-facilities-based ISPs: Both offer “a single, integrated service that enables the subscriber to utilize Internet access service . . . and to realize the benefits of a comprehensive service offering.” Declaratory Ruling 4823, ¶38. Because Internet access provides a capability for manipulating and storing information, the Commission concluded that it was an information service. Ibid.

The integrated nature of Internet access and the high-speed wire used to provide Internet access led the Commission to conclude that cable companies providing Internet access are not telecommunications providers. This conclusion, the Commission reasoned, followed from the logic of the Universal .Service Report. The Report had concluded that, though Internet service “involves data transport elements” because “an Internet access provider must enable the movement of information between customers’ own computers and distant computers with which those customers seek to interact,” it also “offers end users information-service capabilities inextricably intertwined with data transport.” Universal Service Report 11539-11540, ¶ 80. ISPs, therefore, were not “offering ... telecommunications ... directly to the public,” *979§ 153(46), and so were not properly classified as telecommunications carriers, see id., at 11540, ¶ 81. In other words, the Commission reasoned that consumers use their cable modems not to transmit information “transparently,” such as by using a telephone, but instead to obtain Internet access.

The Commission applied this same reasoning to cable companies offering broadband Internet access. Its logic was that, like non-facilities-based ISPs, cable companies do not “offe[r] telecommunications service to the end user, but rather . . . merely us[e] telecommunications to provide end users with cable modem service.” Declaratory Ruling 4824, ¶ 41. Though the Commission declined to apply mandatory Title II common-carrier regulation to cable companies, it invited comment on whether under its Title I jurisdiction it should require cable companies to offer other ISPs access to their facilities on common-carrier terms. Id., at 4839, ¶ 72. Numerous parties petitioned for judicial review, challenging the Commission’s conclusion that cable modem service was not telecommunications service. By judicial lottery, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit was selected as the venue for the challenge.

The Court of Appeals granted the petitions in part, vacated the Declaratory Ruling in part, and remanded to the Commission for further proceedings. In particular, the Court of Appeals vacated the ruling to the extent it concluded that cable modem service was not “telecommunications service” under the Communications Act. It held that the Commission could not permissibly construe the Communications Act to exempt cable companies providing Internet service from Title II regulation. See 345 F. 3d, at 1132. Rather than analyzing the permissibility of that construction under the deferential framework of Chevron, 467 U. S. 837, however, the Court of Appeals grounded its holding in the stare decisis effect of AT&T Corp. v. Portland, 216 F. 3d 871 (CA9 2000). See 345 F. 3d, at 1128-1132. Portland held that cable modem service was a “telecommunications serv*980ice,” though the court in that case was not reviewing an administrative proceeding and the Commission was not a party to the case. See 216 F. 3d, at 877-880. Nevertheless, Portland’s holding, the Court of Appeals reasoned, overrode the contrary interpretation reached by the Commission in the Declaratory Ruling. See 345 F. 3d, at 1130-1131.

We granted certiorari to settle the important questions of federal law that these cases present. 543 U. S. 1018 (2004).

Ill

We first consider whether we should apply Chevron’s framework to the Commission’s interpretation of the term “telecommunications service.” We conclude that we should. We also conclude that the Court of Appeals should have done the same, instead of following the contrary construction it adopted in Portland.

A

In Chevron, this Court held that ambiguities in statutes within an agency’s jurisdiction to administer are delegations of authority to the agency to fill the statutory gap in reasonable fashion. Filling these gaps, the Court explained, involves difficult policy choices that agencies are better equipped to make than courts. 467 U. S., at 865-866. If a statute is ambiguous, and if the implementing agency’s construction is reasonable, Chevron requires a federal court to accept the agency’s construction of the statute, even if the agency’s reading differs from what the court believes is the best statutory interpretation. Id., at 843-844, and n. 11.

The Chevron framework governs our review of the Commission’s construction. Congress has delegated to the Commission the authority to “execute and enforce” the Communications Act, §151, and to “prescribe such rules and regulations as may be necessary in the public interest to carry out the provisions” of the Act, § 201(b); AT&T Corp. v. Iowa Utilities Bd., 525 U. S. 366, 377-378 (1999). These provisions give the Commission the authority to promulgate *981binding legal rules; the Commission issued the order under review in the exercise of that authority; and no one questions that the order is within the Commission’s jurisdiction. See Household Credit Services, Inc. v. Pfennig, 541 U. S. 232, 238-239 (2004); United States v. Mead Corp., 533 U. S. 218, 231-234 (2001); Christensen v. Harris County, 529 U. S. 576, 586-588 (2000). Hence, as we have in the past, we apply the Chevron framework to the Commission’s interpretation of the Communications Act. See National Cable & Telecommunications Assn., Inc. v. Gulf Power Co., 534 U. S. 327, 333-339 (2002); Verizon, 535 U. S., at 501-502.

Some of the respondents dispute this conclusion, on the ground that the Commission’s interpretation is inconsistent with its past practice. We reject this argument. Agency inconsistency is not a basis for declining to analyze the agency’s interpretation under the Chevron framework. Unexplained inconsistency is, at most, a reason for holding an interpretation to be an arbitrary and capricious change from agency practice under the Administrative Procedure Act. See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Assn. of United States, Inc. v. State Farm Mut. Automobile Ins. Co., 463 U. S. 29, 46-57 (1983). For if the agency adequately explains the reasons for a reversal of policy, “change is not invalidating, since the whole point of Chevron is to leave the discretion provided by the ambiguities of a statute with the implementing agency.” Smiley v. Citibank (South Dakota), N. A., 517 U. S. 735, 742 (1996); see also Rust v. Sullivan, 500 U. S. 173, 186-187 (1991); Barnhart v. Walton, 535 U. S. 212, 226 (2002) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment). “An initial agency interpretation is not instantly carved in stone. On the contrary, the agency ... must consider varying interpretations and the wisdom of its policy on a continuing basis,” Chevron, supra, at 863-864, for example, in response to changed factual circumstances, or a change in administrations, see State Farm, supra, at 59 (Rehnquist, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). That is no doubt why *982in Chevron itself, this Court deferred to an agency interpretation that was a recent reversal of agency policy. See 467 U. S., at 857-858. We therefore have no difficulty concluding that Chevron applies.

B

The Court of Appeals declined to apply Chevron because it thought the Commission’s interpretation of the Communications Act foreclosed by the conflicting construction of the Act it had adopted in Portland. See 345 F. 3d, at 1127-1132. It based that holding on the assumption that Portland’s construction overrode the Commission’s, regardless of whether Portland had held the statute to be unambiguous. 345 F. 3d, at 1131. That reasoning was incorrect.

A court’s prior judicial construction of a statute trumps an agency construction otherwise entitled to Chevron deference only if the prior court decision holds that its construction follows from the unambiguous terms of the statute and thus leaves no room for agency discretion. This principle follows from Chevron itself. Chevron established a “presumption that Congress, when it left ambiguity in a statute meant for implementation by an agency, understood that the ambiguity would be resolved, first and foremost, by the agency, and desired the agency (rather than the courts) to possess whatever degree of discretion the ambiguity allows.” Smiley, supra, at 740-741. Yet allowing a judicial precedent to foreclose an agency from interpreting an ambiguous statute, as the Court of Appeals assumed it could, would allow a court’s interpretation to override an agency’s. Chevron’s premise is that it is for agencies, not courts, to fill statutory gaps. See 467 U. S., at 843-844, and n. 11. The better rule is to hold judicial interpretations contained in precedents to the same demanding Chevron step one standard that applies if the court is reviewing the agency’s construction on a blank slate: Only a judicial precedent holding that the statute *983unambiguously forecloses the agency’s interpretation, and therefore contains no gap for the agency to fill, displaces a conflicting agency construction.

A contrary rule would produce anomalous results. It would mean that whether an agency’s interpretation of an ambiguous statute is entitled to Chevron deference would turn on the order in which the interpretations issue: If the court’s construction came first, its construction would prevail, whereas if the agency’s came first, the agency’s construction would command Chevron deference. Yet whether Congress has delegated to an agency the authority to interpret a statute does not depend on the order in which the judicial and administrative constructions occur. The Court of Appeals’ rule, moreover, would “lead to the ossification of large portions of our statutory law,” Mead, 533 U. S., at 247 (Scalia, J., dissenting), by precluding agencies from revising unwise judicial constructions of ambiguous statutes. Neither Chevron nor the doctrine of stare decisis requires these haphazard results.

The dissent answers that allowing an agency to override what a court believes to be the best interpretation of a statute makes “judicial decisions subject to reversal by executive officers.” Post, at 1016 (opinion of Scalia, J.). It does not. Since Chevron teaches that a court’s opinion as to the best reading of an ambiguous statute an agency is charged with administering is not authoritative, the agency’s decision to construe that statute differently from a court does not say that the court’s holding was legally wrong. Instead, the agency may, consistent with the court’s holding, choose a different construction, since the agency remains the authoritative interpreter (within the limits of reason) of such statutes. In all other respects, the court’s prior ruling remains binding law (for example, as to agency interpretations to which Chevron is inapplicable). The precedent has not been “reversed” by the agency, any more than a federal court’s interpretation of a State’s law can be said to have been “reversed” by a *984state court that adopts a conflicting (yet authoritative) interpretation of state law.

The Court of Appeals derived a contrary rule from a mistaken reading of this Court’s decisions. It read Neal v. United States, 516 U. S. 284 (1996), to establish that a prior judicial construction of a statute categorically controls an agency’s contrary construction. 345 F. 3d, at 1131-1132; see also post, at 1016, n. 11 (Scalia, J., dissenting). Neal established no such proposition. Neal declined to defer to a construction adopted by the United States Sentencing Commission that conflicted with one the Court previously had adopted in Chapman v. United States, 500 U. S. 453 (1991). Neal, supra, at 290-295. Chapman, however, had held the relevant statute to be unambiguous. See 500 U. S., at 463 (declining to apply the rule of lenity given the statute’s clear language). Thus, Neal established only that a precedent holding a statute to be unambiguous forecloses a contrary agency construction. That limited holding accorded with this Court’s prior decisions, which had held that a court’s interpretation of a statute trumps an agency’s under the doctrine of stare decisis only if the prior court holding “determined a statute’s clear meaning.” Maislin Industries, U S., Inc. v. Primary Steel, Inc., 497 U. S. 116, 131 (1990) (emphasis added); see also Lechmere, Inc. v. NLRB, 502 U. S. 527, 536-537 (1992). Those decisions allow a court’s prior interpretation of a statute to override an agency’s interpretation only if the relevant court decision held the statute unambiguous.

Against this background, the Court of Appeals erred in refusing to apply Chevron to the Commission’s interpretation of the definition of “telecommunications service,” 47 U. S. C. § 153(46). Its prior decision in Portland held only that the best reading of § 153(46) was that cable modem service was a “telecommunications service,” not that it was the only permissible reading of the statute. See 216 F. 3d, at 877-880. Nothing in Portland held that the Communica*985tions Act unambiguously required treating cable Internet providers as telecommunications carriers. Instead, the court noted that it was “not presented with a case involving potential deference to an administrative agency’s statutory construction pursuant to the Chevron doctrine,” id., at 876; and the court invoked no other rule of construction (such as the rule of lenity) requiring it to conclude that the statute was unambiguous to reach its judgment. Before a judicial construction of a statute, whether contained in a precedent or not, may trump an agency’s, the court must hold that the statute unambiguously requires the court’s construction. Portland did not do so.

As the dissent points out, it is not logically necessary for us to reach the question whether the Court of Appeals misapplied Chevron for us to decide whether the Commission acted lawfully. See post, at 1019-1020 (opinion of Scalia, J.). Nevertheless, it is no “great mystery” why we are reaching the point here. Post, at 1019. There is genuine confusion in the lower courts over the interaction between the Chevron doctrine and stare decisis principles, as the petitioners informed us at the certiorari stage of this litigation. See Pet. for Cert, of Federal Communications Commission et al. in No. 04-281, pp. 19-23; Pet. for Cert. of National Cable & Telecomm. Assn, et al. in No. 04-277, pp. 22-29. The point has been briefed. See Brief for Federal Petitioners 38-44; Brief for Cable-Industry Petitioners 30-36. And not reaching the point could undermine the purpose of our grant of certiorari: to settle authoritatively whether the Commission’s Declaratory Ruling is lawful. Were we to uphold the Declaratory Ruling without reaching the Chevron point, the Court of Appeals could once again strike down the Commission’s rule based on its Portland decision. Portland (at least arguably) could compel the Court of Appeals once again to reverse the Commission despite our decision, since our conclusion that it is reasonable to read the Communications Act to classify cable modem service solely as an “infor*986mation service” leaves untouched Portland's holding that the Commission’s interpretation is not the best reading of the statute. We have before decided similar questions that were not, strictly speaking, necessary to our disposition. See, e. g., Agostini v. Felton, 521 U. S. 203, 237 (1997) (requiring the Courts of Appeals to adhere to our directly controlling precedents, even those that rest on reasons rejected in other decisions); Roper v. Simmons, 543 U. S. 551, 628-629 (2005) (Scalia, J., dissenting) (criticizing this Court for not reaching the question whether the Missouri Supreme Court erred by failing to follow directly controlling Supreme Court precedent, though that conclusion was not necessary to the Court’s decision). It is prudent for us to do so once again today.

IV

We next address whether the Commission’s construction of the definition of “telecommunications service,” 47 U. S. C. §153(46), is a permissible reading of the Communications Act under the Chevron framework. Chevron established a familiar two-step procedure for evaluating whether an agency’s interpretation of a statute is lawful. At the first step, we ask whether the statute’s plain terms “directly ad-dres[s] the precise question at issue.” 467 U. S., at 843. If the statute is ambiguous on the point, we defer at step two to the agency’s interpretation so long as the construction is “a reasonable policy choice for the agency to make.” Id., at 845. The Commission’s interpretation is permissible at both steps.

A

We first set forth our understanding of the interpretation of the Communications Act that the Commission embraced. The issue before the Commission was whether cable companies providing cable modem service are providing a “telecommunications service” in addition to an “information service.”

*987The Commission first concluded that cable modem service is an “information service,” a conclusion unchallenged here. The Act defines “information service” as “the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via telecommunications____” § 158(20). Cable modem service is an information service, the Commission reasoned, because it provides consumers with a comprehensive capability for manipulating information using the Internet via high-speed telecommunications. That service enables users, for example, to browse the World Wide Web, to transfer files from file archives available on the Internet via the “File Transfer Protocol,” and to access e-mail and Usenet newsgroups. Declaratory Ruling 4821, ¶ 37; Universal Service Report 11537, ¶ 76. Like other forms of Internet service, cable modem service also gives users access to the Domain Name System (DNS). DNS, among other things, matches the Web page addresses that end users type into their browsers (or “click” on) with the Internet Protocol (IP) addresses1 of the servers containing the Web pages the users wish to aecess. Declaratory Ruling 4821-4822, ¶ 37. All of these features, the Commission concluded, were part of the information service that cable companies provide consumers. Id., at 4821-4823, ¶¶ 36-38; see also Universal Service Report 11536-11539, ¶¶ 75-79.

At the same time, the Commission concluded that cable modem service was not “telecommunications service.” “Telecommunications service” is “the offering of telecommunications for a fee directly to the public.” 47 U. S. C. § 153(46). “Telecommunications,” in turn, is defined as “the transmission, between or among points specified by the user, of information of the user’s choosing, without change in the form or content of the information as sent and received.” *988§ 153(48). The Commission conceded that, like all information-service providers, cable companies use “telecommunications” to provide consumers with Internet service; cable companies provide such service via the high-speed wire that transmits signals to and from an end user’s computer. Declaratory Ruling 4823, ¶ 40. For the Commission, however, the question whether cable broadband Internet providers “offer” telecommunications involved more than whether telecommunications was one necessary component of cable modem service. Instead, whether that service also includes a telecommunications “offering” “turn[ed] on the nature of the functions the end user is offered,” id., at 4822, ¶ 38 (emphasis added), for the statutory definition of “telecommunications service” does not “res[t] on the particular types of facilities used,” id., at 4821, ¶ 35; see § 153(46) (definition of “telecommunications service” applies “regardless of the facilities used”).

Seen from the consumer’s point of view, the Commission concluded, cable modem service is not a telecommunications offering because the consumer uses the high-speed wire always in connection with the information-processing capabilities provided by Internet access, and because the transmission is a necessary component of Internet access: “As provided to the end user the telecommunications is part and parcel of cable modem service and is integral to its other capabilities.” Declaratory Ruling 4823, ¶ 39. The wire is used, in other words, to access the World Wide Web, newsgroups, and so forth, rather than “transparently” to transmit and receive ordinary-language messages without computer processing or storage of the message. See supra, at 976 (noting the Computer II notion of “transparent” transmission). The integrated character of this offering led the Commission to conclude that cable modem service is not a “stand-alone,” transparent offering of telecommunications. Declaratory Ruling 4823-4825, ¶¶ 41-43.

*989B

This construction passes Chevron's first step. Respondents argue that it does not, on the ground that cable companies providing Internet service necessarily “offe[r]” the underlying telecommunications used to transmit that service. The word “offering” as used in § 153(46), however, does not unambiguously require that result. Instead, “offering” can reasonably be read to mean a “stand-alone” offering of telecommunications, i. e., an offered service that, from the user’s perspective, transmits messages unadulterated by computer processing. That conclusion follows not only from the ordinary meaning of the word “offering,” but also from the regulatory history of the Communications Act.

1

Cable companies in the broadband Internet service business “offe[r]” consumers an information service in the form of Internet access and they do so “via telecommunications,” § 153(20), but it does not inexorably follow as a matter of ordinary language that they also “offe[r]” consumers the high-speed data transmission (telecommunications) that is an input used to provide this service, § 153(46). We have held that where a statute’s plain terms admit of two or more reasonable ordinary usages, the Commission’s choice of one of them is entitled to deference. See Verizon, 535 U. S., at 498 (deferring to the Commission’s interpretation of the term “cost” by reference to an alternative linguistic usage defined by what “[a] merchant who is asked about ‘the cost of providing the goods’ ” might “reasonably” say); National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Boston & Maine Corp., 503 U. S. 407, 418 (1992) (agency construction entitled to deference where there were “alternative dictionary definitions of the word” at issue). The term “offe[r]” as used in the definition of telecommunications service, §153(46), is ambiguous in this way.

*990It is common usage to describe what a company “offers” to a consumer as what the consumer perceives to be the integrated finished product, even to the exclusion of discrete components that compose the product, as the dissent concedes. See post, at 1006-1007 (opinion of Scalia, J.). One might well say that a car dealership “offers” cars, but does not “offer” the integrated major inputs that make purchasing the ear valuable, such as the engine or the chassis. It would, in fact, be odd t