Copper Retirement NPRM Expected to Be Approved With Tweaks
FCC commissioners are expected to approve, with a few tweaks, an NPRM designed to help major providers more easily retire aging copper networks. Industry officials said Democratic Commissioner Anna Gomez appears likely to dissent on the item at Thursday’s open meeting. Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld told us Tuesday that the group has major concerns with proposals in the draft.
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Only two groups filed ex parte notices since the item was circulated (see 2507030049), USTelecom and Incompas, both seeking tweaks. They declined comment ahead of the meeting. Copper retirement has been a top focus of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as part of his deregulatory agenda.
“The item proposes to strip away the last protections for consumers with regard to the operation of basic voice service,” Feld said. “Existing rules already make it simple for carriers to discontinue service.” There’s no evidence “that any FCC requirements are delaying discontinuance of TDM,” or time-division multiplexing.
“There are no guarantees here to ensure that all Americans will continue to have access to 911,” Feld noted. Given the uncertainty around BEAD, it’s "reckless to assume that all rural Americans will have access to broadband capable of supporting voice services," he added. "Yet the item proposes, in all seriousness, to forbear from all discontinuance regulations.” The 30-day comment period proposed for approval of final rules is “even more ridiculous,” since “this is a matter of tremendous technical complexity.”
Free State Foundation President Randolph May defended the draft. The NPRM is “necessary, overdue and should be uncontroversial,” May emailed, adding that the vote should be unanimous. “If it’s not, it’s a good sign there won’t be too many [unanimous votes], even when there should be.”
The proceeding has been “remarkably quiet,” noted Kristian Stout, innovation policy director for the International Center for Law & Economics. “Barring any last-minute curveballs, I’d expect only cosmetic tweaks, tightening language around public-safety continuity and the streamlined 31-day window [for automatically granting applications], rather than substantive change.”
USTelecom representatives met with Wireline Bureau staff and aides to the three commissioners on the issue, said a filing last week in docket 25-209. “We urged the Commission to seek general comment on any regulatory barriers to network modernization beyond those discussed in the draft Notice.”
The group urged the FCC to ask: “Are there any state or local requirements that compel carriers to continue providing legacy voice service or that impede carriers from ceasing to provide such service, and are thereby inconsistent with the deregulatory reforms identified in this Notice or any provisions of the Communications Act, and, if so, how can the Commission address any such obstacles?”
Many of the changes sought by USTelecom address wording and definitions. Instead of certifying the existence of “a widely adopted alternative voice service,” the group suggested that providers should have to certify that there are “widely available” alternatives. Rather than referencing “interconnected VoIP over copper,” it said the notice should refer to “interconnected VoIP generally, without regard to transmission medium.”
Incompas officials didn’t have meetings at the FCC but asked the agency to add questions. The notice should “seek comment on eliminating the discontinuance regulatory requirements that apply to a carrier that must discontinue reselling a service that is subject to an application for technology transition discontinuance.” Incompas members “fear that if the Commission approves a facilities-based carrier’s technology transition discontinuance application, resellers of the services subject to that application have no choice but to discontinue the service to their customer.”
The NPRM should also seek comment “on permanently eliminating the customer notice requirements for grandfathered services that are not subject to filing requirements under Section 214(a) [of the Communications Act] and the Commission’s implementing rules,” Incompas said. The group asked for additional questions, including on the implications for 911 calls and on the proposed elimination of a requirement that an incumbent [local exchange carrier] seek prior commission approval “before taking down a trunk (such as a DS1 or DS3) used for the exchange of traffic.”
An industry official said “some tweaks and changes" are expected based on the filings, "but nothing too major.” A second official said competitive carriers will be watching issues including reseller requirements, the need for an orderly transition and whether the commission retains authority over the discontinuance of wholesale interconnection.