FCC's 'Delete' Effort Prompts Defense of Some Regulations

Don’t weaken robocall/robotext regulatory or declaratory ruling protections, urged a coalition of consumer groups and allies, including the National Consumer Law Center, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America and Public Knowledge. Unwanted robocalls invade people’s privacy, make telephones less useful and tie up lines to the detriment of public safety, they said.

Mentioning efforts to amend the broadband “nutrition label” rules, the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates said such changes would “undermine the very transparency intended by Congress and the FCC.” The association said the FCC should “tread carefully and deliberately” in eliminating the rules, making sure consumers aren’t inadvertently harmed. In addition, it defended the requirement that the FCC sign off on discontinuing any legacy voice service.

Accessibility organizations said ending rules related to service accessibility without considering other ways to achieve the same goal "risks decreasing access by people with disabilities to telecommunications and media at a time when the broader population is being greeted by a plethora of new and modern ways of messaging, communicating, and watching video programming." The groups -- including Communication Service for the Deaf, the Hearing Loss Association of America and the American Council of the Blind -- said proposals that update or eliminate an accessibility rule should include an opportunity for disability community members to evaluate the impact.

The Association of Public-Safety Communications Officials International pushed back against repealing or amending 911 outage notification requirements. APCO said the 911 outage order just went into effect April 15, and it would be premature for the FCC to conclude that the circumstances underlying it have changed or that the rules have put excessive costs on covered service providers. Public-safety requirements should be outside the scope of the Delete proceeding, it added.

Mentioning efforts to remove some inmate-calling rules, groups including the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Public Knowledge and the United Church of Christ Media Justice Ministry said "the audacity of [incarcerated people’s communications services] providers knows no bounds." They said rules requiring costs to be in per-minute rates, inclusion of only certain security costs and prohibitions on minimum deposits were instituted to prevent exploitation by IPCS providers.

NTCA defended universal service programs. Arguments for dismantling them “are based on generalized and misinformed claims,” and the universal service mission goes far beyond deployment. NTCA said there was other support in the docket, alongside its own, for “surgical adjustments” to broadband labels and for closing the Further NPRM. In addition, it said it wasn’t alone in calling for revisiting the requirement that disaster information reporting system content be mandatory instead of voluntary. NTCA said the daily infrastructure reports are burdensome, especially for small businesses recovering from emergencies.

Pay-TV interests argued against undoing broadcast-ownership rules, warning of broadcasters gaining even greater leverage in retransmission consent talks (see 2504290054). NAB characterized multichannel video programming distributors' suggestions on ownership rules and retransmission consent as “tired, retrograde, rent-seeking proposals designed to keep broadcasters mired in the morass of existing regulations” that the FCC should reject. Sinclair said the MVPD commenters “attempt to mask as ‘deregulatory’ a self-interested desire to turn back the clock and allow them to steal retransmission of broadcast signals without having to obtain broadcasters’ consent or offer fair remuneration.” Nexstar said altering or eliminating rules around retransmission consent negotiation “will not provide MVPDs with additional negotiating partners for network programming, but will instead unnecessarily increase the complexity” of retrans deals and “drive up the cost of enforcing contractual rights” and thus, retrans fees.

Delete efforts should strive for parity among industry segments that face the same or similar requirements, ACA Connects said. For example, should the FCC end or lessen political file and equal employment opportunity obligations for broadcasters, it should do likewise for cable operators, ACA said.

The Satellite Broadcasting and Communications Association argued for keeping over-the-air reception device rules. It said the rules’ role in promoting competition in the video distribution marketplace is “undeniable.” Astranis Space Technologies pushed back on eliminating the 2-degree spacing in geostationary orbit, saying that absent such rules, legacy operators could block new entrants like Astranis.

Backing and Echoing

The proceeding also saw new suggestions for deregulation.

For instance, Free State Foundation rolled out a long list of broadband and voice services regulations it suggested should be obliterated, including repeating its call to eliminate or modify the “effective measures” robocall rule (see 2504170025). In addition, it advocated for the elimination of regulation of broadband services under the FCC’s 2024 Title II order, as well as erasing the agency's digital discrimination order.

Moreover, it said the agency should close its broadband data cap proceeding and agency proceedings opened before January, unless it determines there’s evidence of a problem that would warrant FCC action. And it urged undoing FCC decisions to subsidize Wi-Fi on school buses and off-premises Wi-Fi hotspots via the E-rate program.

The Foundation for American Innovation also urged undoing E-rate expansion, as well as the USF’s eligible telecommunications carrier requirements. The free-market American Consumer Institute said the communications sector “is effectively competitive” and recommended for deletion an array of what it said were unnecessary regulations, including making permanent steps that the FCC took in March to make it easier for carriers to move away from legacy copper networks (see 2503200056).

Calling them “low-hanging fruit,” a litany of rules for deletion was offered by consultant and former FCC Wireline Bureau Deputy Chief Carol Mattey, including those governing Bell operating companies, the rule setting out how local switching support is calculated (even though LSS hasn’t existed since 2011), and Connect America Fund intercarrier compensation replacement, since price cap carriers haven’t been eligible for that support since 2020.

The proceeding also saw commenters throwing their weight behind others' proposals.

OneWeb said there’s clear support in the docket for removing a variety of satellite rules, including the requirement that non-geostationary orbit (NGSO) operators notify the FCC in advance of deploying and operating technically identical replacement satellites in an authorized orbit within the term of the system authorization. AST SpaceMobile backed using shot clocks for FCC determinations on satellite and earth station licensing and ending surety bond requirements for satellite operators. Globalstar joined other satellite operators in calling for an end to the requirement that NGSO operators provide at least 10 days' notice to the FCC when repositioning satellites.

Along with echoing others' calls for deleting feeder-link siting restrictions and urging the demise of the requirement that earth station applicants submit contour maps, Amazon’s Kuiper said there’s need for an omnibus satellite licensing rulemaking. That omnibus could cover reforming NGSO processing rounds and creating application review shot clocks, it said. However, Viasat opposed shot clocks and said the agency should continue to use license conditions that ensure proposed operations serve the public interest.

The requirement that originating service providers notify the FCC and 911 special facilities within minutes of network outages doesn’t enhance public safety and is a burden, said Altice USA. It also backed ditching the requirement that wireless resellers or mobile virtual network operators comply with outage reporting requirements, calling it unnecessary and redundant.

The Consumer Technology Association said the agency should abandon rules specific to cable TV capabilities, as well as the requirement for program-blocking technology to be in TV receivers. Legacy closed-captioning requirements aren’t needed in an era of more modern formats, such as subtitles for the deaf or hard of hearing.

The FCC’s Delete notice soliciting comments can’t be seen as an NPRM, as it wasn’t adopted by commission vote or agency staff under delegated authority, EPIC said. Anything the agency does in response to initial comments must follow the Administrative Procedure Act to have force of law, EPIC said. Given the U.S. Supreme Court’s Loper Bright decision, the FCC should expect that it will be challenged on its authority to redefine or reinterpret statutory terms, EPIC added. It said any regulatory changes that are essentially deletions of existing rules “serve to privilege companies that never expended the resources on full compliance in the first place, which would have negative consequences for the agency and the industries it regulates.”