Spalter Urges 'Spring Cleaning' of FCC Rules
Comments in Chairman Brendan Carr's “Delete, Delete, Delete” docket (25-133) continue to roll in to the FCC. As of late Friday, the due date, nearly 600 comments have been filed. Also on Friday, USTelecom CEO Jonathan Spalter compared the docket to “spring cleaning.”
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The initiative “is a bold and necessary effort to slog through the decades-long accumulation of regulations to eliminate or update rules that have remained on the books long past their useful lifetimes,” Spalter said. “Some are the stuff of comedy gold: vintage rules from the ’80s and ’90s requiring mandatory quarterly reports on payphone revenues (good luck finding one outside the Smithsonian), and edicts mandating public notices via physical fliers 'at street level' or in the local newspaper -- things that have been more or less replaced by the internet.”
Other rules are more consequential, Spalter said. “Legacy rules force providers to maintain obsolete infrastructure no one uses, file outdated reports no one reads, and comply with paperwork requirements meant for a monopoly phone company in the 1980s, not the broadband-powered economy of 2025.”
The FCC’s “Delete, Delete, Delete proceeding is going to help us connect, connect, connect,” said Jason Williams, CEO of Montana’s Blackfoot Communications, during a USTelecom forum Thursday (see 2504100040). “There are literally countless policies out there holding our industry back,” he said.
Among early comments (see 2504080053), EchoStar said too many rules tie back to a previous era. “The rise of streaming services, shifts in consumer viewing habits, and intense competition all demand a regulatory framework that is nimble, minimally burdensome, and technology-neutral,” the company said: “Unfortunately, numerous legacy regulations remain on the books that impose significant compliance costs to protect interests that may only need minimal protection, or that may not even exist.”
The Competitive Enterprise Institute targeted FCC actions that have met with past opposition from the right. It listed E-rate support for Wi-Fi hot spots, all-in pricing for cable and satellite TV services, and broadband label requirements. “Eliminating as much of the regulatory burden as possible is the surest and most efficient way of benefiting consumers, protecting taxpayers, and unleashing the maximum amount of innovation and prosperity in the communications industry.”
The Taxpayers Protection Alliance also targeted broadband labels and said the agency should “make permanent” a two-year waiver that allows a carrier to discontinue a legacy voice service without FCC authorization. In addition, it called out media ownership rules and broadcast filing requirements, while offering more than a dozen streamlining proposals. The group “welcomes this opportunity to assist the FCC in closely scrutinizing rules that are raising costs for taxpayers and consumers and impeding the growth of the telecom industry,” it said.