FCC Gets Lots of Advice From Telecom Industry on Trimming Regulation
CTIA offered the FCC a list of programs for streamlining through the commission’s “Delete” proceeding in comments posted Monday in docket 25-133. In addition, USTelecom recommended “eliminating, streamlining, or reforming” some 3,000 rules in the "Code of Federal Regulations." The comments provide commission staff with thousands of suggestions to wade through as they evaluate changes the telecom industry suggested. As of late Monday, the commission has received nearly 900 comments in the proceeding (see 2504140063 and 2504140037).
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Federal agencies must “develop more accurate and thorough cost-benefit" analyses and “ensure that implementing regulations reflect the single, best meaning of the authorizing statute,” CTIA said. “The Commission has acknowledged that light-touch regulation helps to promote investment and innovation, allow[s] competition to drive market solutions and constrain prices, and enable[s] U.S. leadership in next-generation technologies.”
CTIA provided an appendix of programs where it’s seeking changes, covering broadband mapping, siting, equipment authorization and competitive bidding rules, among other areas. The group suggested seven specific changes in spectrum licensing and leasing rules.
USTelecom urged the FCC to address “public safety regulations that actually risk public safety.” The lead area of focus in the comments was the process for retiring legacy systems. “Nearly-century-old discontinuance requirements were created during a time of monopoly voice service, and they continue to apply only to wireline providers,” USTelecom said. That was followed by eligible telecommunications carrier requirements and broadband reporting rules, including broadband labels.
Incompas said the FCC should initially focus on “deregulatory efforts in areas where there is broad consensus that a rule may be unnecessary or outdated and where there is widespread support for its elimination, repeal, or modification.” Among areas where it sought changes were broadband data collection (BDC) and data security and privacy rules. Also mentioned were international reporting requirements, rules covering the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, and those on reporting 911 service outages.
Process is important, Incompas said: The commission “should act prudently to ensure that it proceeds in accordance with the Administrative Procedure Act and does not eliminate or repeal disputed rules that are relied on by certain segments of the industry and which protect and promote competition and innovation.”
AT&T said “the White House has made clear that the Commission should act aggressively and quickly.” The carrier noted that the Telecom Act of 1996 was a huge success that transformed the sector. It “also contemplated that periodic reexamination of the need for regulations would become routine, and in this area the result has fallen short of Congressional aspirations -- regulatory obligations have continued to multiply, and the promised periodic removal of obsolete regulations has often succumbed to inertia and stagnation."
WISPA listed broadband labels and BDC requirements, as well as disability access recordkeeping and certification and digital discrimination rules. The FCC can “eliminate unnecessary regulatory barriers that hinder ready access to spectrum by simplifying and streamlining its spectrum leasing policies and rules,” replacing the two current spectrum leasing options with a single process, WISPA said. The group also called for simplification of agency spectrum rules.
NTCA complained about many of the same rules cited by other groups, including the “wide array of historic cost accounting rules,” broadband labels, digital discrimination requirements and other reporting mandates. The FCC must “understand which of the rules to which operators are subject may be out-of-date, unduly burdensome, or entirely unnecessary in today's competitive communications marketplace,” NTCA said: “Certain of the regulations … may actually discourage investment and disrupt positive market forces.”
The Consumer Technology Association stressed gear authorization rules. Current rules “impose significant burdens on manufacturers, leading to increased costs and stifled innovation,” it said: “These challenges include redundant and excessively lengthy compliance statements, unnecessary import conditions, superfluous warnings about device modifications, and overly burdensome recordkeeping and consumer.”
ARRL, which represents amateur operators, called for “an omnibus proceeding to modernize specific sections of its Part 97 rules that regulate the Amateur Radio Service.”
Some comments were highly focused.
Cisco Systems urged the FCC to delete rules that prevent the use of the 6 GHz band for Wi-Fi on cruise ships. “As demand for cruise vacations increases … FCC policy is hindering this important sector,” it said: “Access to 6 GHz spectrum, even if only at low power indoors [levels], will dramatically improve the Wi-Fi experience for American passengers and ship operations.”
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) called on the FCC to streamline filing requirements for Part 80 licensees that use 200 MHz spectrum for safety operations. The group also urged the FCC to raise the 8-watt transmitter power restriction to 30 watts for Part 90 railroad end-of-telemetry operations using the 452/457.9375 MHz frequency pair and to “consolidate the individually-licensed Part 90 railroad coordinator-assigned frequencies using 160 MHz channels into a single nationwide ribbon license.”