Accelerating Wireline Broadband Deployment by Removing Barriers to Infrastructure Investment

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket No. 17-84; FCC 23-109; FR ID 193610]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Accelerating Wireline Broadband Deployment by Removing Barriers to Infrastructure Investment</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Proposed rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Commission adopted a Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) that tentatively concludes that the Commission should take further action to facilitate the processing of pole attachment applications that are submitted in large numbers. It also seeks comment on whether the Commission should modify its self-help rules to enable prospective attachers to access poles more quickly. Finally, it seeks comment on the impact of contractor availability when attachers seek to use their own contractors when conducting self-help or one-touch make-ready for surveys and make-ready work. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before February 13, 2024, and reply comments are due on or before February 28, 2024. Written comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements must be submitted by the public, Office of Management and Budget (OMB), and other interested parties on or before March 11, 2024. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to sections 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated in this document. Comments and reply comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). See <E T="03">Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings,</E> 63 FR 24121 (1998). Interested parties may file comments or reply comments, identified by CG Docket No. 17-59 and WC Docket No. 17-97 by any of the following methods: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically by accessing ECFS at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. Paper filings can be sent by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail. • Effective March 19, 2020, and until further notice, the Commission no longer accepts any hand or messenger delivered filings. • Commercial overnight mail (other than U.S. Postal Service Express Mail and Priority Mail) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • U.S. Postal Service first-class, Express, and Priority mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. In addition to filing comments with the Secretary, a copy of any comments on the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements contained herein should be submitted to the Federal Communications Commission via email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> and to Nicole Ongele, FCC, via email to <E T="03">Nicole.Ongele@fcc.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information, please contact either Michele Berlove, Assistant Division Chief, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">michele.berlove@fcc.gov</E> or at (202) 418-1477, or Michael Ray, Attorney Advisor, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">michael.ray@fcc.gov</E> or at (202) 418-0357. For additional information concerning the Paperwork Reduction Act proposed information collection requirements contained in this document, send an email to <E T="03">PRA@fcc.gov</E> or contact Nicole Ongele at (202) 418-2991. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (FNPRM) in WC Docket No. 17-84, FCC 23-109, adopted on December 13, 2023, and released on December 15, 2023. The full text of this document is available for public inspection at the following internet address: <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-seeks-make-pole-attachment-process-faster-more-transparent-and-more-cost-effective.</E> The Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, requires each agency, in providing notice of a rulemaking, to post online a brief plain-language summary of the proposed rule. The required summary of this <E T="03">FNPRM</E> is available at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Initial Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 Analysis</HD> This document may contain proposed information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. <E T="03">Comments should address:</E> (a) whether the proposed collection of information is necessary for the proper performance of the functions of the Commission, including whether the information shall have practical utility; (b) the accuracy of the Commission's burden estimates; (c) ways to enhance the quality, utility, and clarity of the information collected; (d) ways to minimize the burden of the collection of information on the respondents, including the use of automated collection techniques or other forms of information technology; and (e) way to further reduce the information collection burden on small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, <E T="03">see</E> 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4), we seek specific comment on how we might further reduce the information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Comment Period and Filing Procedures</HD> Pursuant to sections 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments on or before the dates indicated on the first page of this document. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) or by paper. Commenters should refer to WC Docket No. 21-341 when filing in response to this <E T="03">FNPRM.</E> • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically by accessing ECFS at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs.</E> • <E T="03">Paper Filers:</E> Parties who choose to file by paper must file an original and one copy of each filing. Paper filings can be sent by commercial overnight courier, or by first-class or overnight U.S. Postal Service mail. • Effective March 19, 2020, and until further notice, the Commission no longer accepts any hand or messenger delivered filings. • Commercial overnight mail (other than U.S. Postal Service Express Mail and Priority Mail) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. U.S. Postal Service first-class, Express, and Priority Mail must be addressed to 45 L Street NE, Washington, DC 20554. <E T="03">People with Disabilities:</E> To request materials in accessible formats for people with disabilities (braille, large print, electronic files, audio format), send an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or call the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau at 202-418-0530 (voice), 202-418-0432 (TTY). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Introduction</HD> 1. Access to a broadband connection is a necessity of modern life. With consumers more dependent than ever on fixed and mobile broadband networks for work, healthcare services, education, and social activities, the Commission remains committed to ensuring consumers across the nation have meaningful access to broadband. With the support of the Commission's universal service fund, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which included the largest ever federal investment in broadband, as well as other federal and state broadband deployment programs, more funding than ever is available to build the necessary infrastructure to bring much-needed broadband services to unserved and underserved areas in the United States. Key to these broadband projects are the utility poles that support the wires and the wireless equipment that carry broadband to American homes and businesses. 2. Over the last several years, the Commission has taken significant steps in setting the “rules for the road” for the discussions between utilities and telecommunications companies about the timing and cost of attaching broadband equipment to utility poles, with the backstop of a robust complaint process when parties cannot agree on the rates, terms, and conditions for pole attachments. (Note that section 224(c) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the Act), exempts from Commission jurisdiction those pole attachments in states that have elected to regulate pole attachments themselves. To date, 23 states and the District of Columbia have opted out of Commission regulation of pole attachments in their jurisdictions. The Commission's pole attachment rules currently only apply to cable operators and providers of telecommunications services and therefore do not apply to broadband-only internet service providers. We recently proposed to reclassify broadband internet access service as a telecommunications service, which would, if completed, apply section 224 and the Commission's pole attachment rules to broadband-only internet serv ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 110k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━