Reducing Barriers to Network Improvements and Service Changes

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 51 and 63</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket Nos. 25-208, 25-209; FCC 25-37; FR ID 308937]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Reducing Barriers to Network Improvements and Service Changes</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 Federal Communications Commission (Commission) adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks comment on deregulatory options to encourage providers to build, maintain, and upgrade their networks such that all consumers and businesses can benefit from technological strides in the communications marketplace, while safeguarding consumers' access to critical emergency services such as 911. These actions propose to reduce regulatory barriers that prevent much-needed investment in and deployment of broadband and thus hinder the transition to all-IP networks offering a plethora of advanced communications services, and seek comment on ways to further fast-track the delivery of services to consumers through modernized networks while protecting public safety. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before September 29, 2025; reply comments are due on or before October 27, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Pursuant to §§ 1.415 and 1.419 of the Commission's rules, 47 CFR 1.415, 1.419, interested parties may file comments and reply comments. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). You may submit comments, identified by WC Docket Nos. 25-208 and 25-209, by the following method: • <E T="03">Electronic Filers:</E> Comments may be filed electronically using the internet by accessing the ECFS: <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. • Filings can be sent by hand or messenger delivery, by commercial courier, or by the U.S. Postal Service. All filings must be addressed to the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • Hand-delivered or messenger-delivered paper filings for the Commission's Secretary are accepted between 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. by the FCC's mailing contractor at 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. All hand deliveries must be held together with rubber bands or fasteners. Any envelopes and boxes must be disposed of before entering the building. • Commercial courier deliveries (any deliveries not by the U.S. Postal Service) must be sent to 9050 Junction Drive, Annapolis Junction, MD 20701. • Filings sent by U.S. Postal Service First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express must be sent 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. 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 about this proceeding, please contact Michele Berlove, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at (202) 418-1477, or <E T="03">michele.berlove@fcc.gov,</E> or Mason Shefa, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">mason.shefa@fcc.gov,</E> or (202) 418-2494. 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 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in WC Docket Nos. 25-208, 25-209; FCC 25-37, adopted on July 24, 2025, and released on July 25, 2025. The full text of this document is available for public inspection at the following internet address: <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-37A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act:</E> This document contains proposed new or modified information collection requirements. The Commission, as part of its continuing effort to reduce paperwork burdens, invites the general public and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to comment on the information collection requirements contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, Public Law 104-13. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, Public Law 107-198, see 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. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act:</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, a summary of this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking 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. <E T="03">Ex Parte Rules:</E> The proceeding this document initiates shall be treated as a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding in accordance with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Persons making <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations must file a copy of any written presentation or a memorandum summarizing any oral presentation within two business days after the presentation (unless a different deadline applicable to the Sunshine period applies). Persons making oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentation was made, and (2) summarize all data presented and arguments made during the presentation. If the presentation consisted in whole or in part of the presentation of data or arguments already reflected in the presenter's written comments, memoranda or other filings in the proceeding, the presenter may provide citations to such data or arguments in his or her prior comments, memoranda, or other filings (specifying the relevant page and/or paragraph numbers where such data or arguments can be found) in lieu of summarizing them in the memorandum. Documents shown or given to Commission staff during <E T="03">ex parte</E> meetings are deemed to be written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and must be filed consistent with rule 1.1206(b). In proceedings governed by rule 1.49(f) or for which the Commission has made available a method of electronic filing, written <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations and memoranda summarizing oral <E T="03">ex parte</E> presentations, and all attachments thereto, must be filed through the electronic comment filing system available for that proceeding, and must be filed in their native format ( <E T="03">e.g.,</E> .doc, .xml, .ppt, searchable .pdf). Participants in this proceeding should familiarize themselves with the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Copper Retirement (and Other Network Change Disclosures)</HD> 1. Section 251(c)(5) of the Act, which establishes incumbent local exchange carriers' (LECs) obligations when making changes that could affect the interoperability of their facilities or networks, is a notice-only provision. An incumbent LEC may thus make changes to its network, including switching from copper facilities to fiber or other next-generation facilities, without the need to receive prior Commission authorization so long as it provides “reasonable public notice”—a requirement the Commission historically has reflected in its implementing rules. Consistent with section 251(c)(5), the Commission's implementing rules require that an incumbent LEC provide public notice regarding any network change that (1) will affect a competing service provider's performance or ability to provide service; (2) will affect the incumbent LEC's interoperability with other service providers; or (3) will result in a copper retirement. The rules define copper retirement as “[t]he removal or disabling of copper loops, subloops, or the feeder portion of such loops or subloops; or [t]he replacement of such loops with fiber-to-the-home loops or fiber-to-the-curb loops.” Section 251(c)(5) reflects the decision by Congress that a notice-based network change process best serves the public by striking a balance between allowing incumbent LECs to make changes to their networks without undue regulatory burdens and giving competitive LECs time to account for those changes. Accordingly, the Commission has periodically reviewed its rules to determine whether they appropriately reflect this balance. 2. Earlier this year, the Bureau issued the <E T="03">NCD Waiver Order,</E> which waives, for a period of two years, the filing requirements in the Commission's network change disclosure rules adopted pursuant to section 251(c)(5) of the Act. The Bureau also waived its process of issuing public notices for short-term network changes and copper retirements, as well as the associated obje ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 186k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━