in april 2010, discovery communications announced that it would pull its channels from sky angel in response to unspecified concerns surrounding how its programming was delivered. in response, sky angel filed a program access complaint with the federal communications commission, alleging that discovery was discriminating against the service by allowing other major cable providers to offer access to its programming over the internet (either through a tv everywhere service, or through dish network's slingbox-based set-top boxes). the fcc denied sky angel's request for a standstill on the case, but the fcc media bureau began to dispute whether sky angel qualified as a "multichannel video programming distributor" (mvpd) under the regulations because it does not have a physical "transmission path" in its infrastructure. the commission, along with allies such as google, acknowledged that making any ruling on whether an over-the-top service qualifies as an mvpd may have a major effect on the internet video industry as a whole.