Advancing IP Interconnection

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 51</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WC Docket Nos. 25-304, 25-208, 17-97; FCC 25-73; FR ID 319327]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Advancing IP Interconnection</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 proposes to eliminate burdensome legacy interconnection regulations that may prevent providers of modern, internet Protocol (IP)-based networks from interconnecting efficiently, and also seeks comment on ways the Commission can facilitate a successful transition to all-IP interconnection for voice services while retaining critical oversight in areas of public safety and consumer protection, and ensuring competition. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking proposes to forbear from incumbent local exchange carrier (LEC)-specific interconnection and related obligations, and to eliminate the Commission's rules implementing those provisions by December 31, 2028. The Commission also seeks comment on whether and to what extent eliminating the incumbent LEC-specific interconnection regulatory framework may affect other statutory frameworks or Commission rules, and whether the Commission should revisit any other provisions or rules that are rendered redundant by the elimination of incumbent LECs' interconnection obligations. Finally, the Commission seeks comment on what, if any, regulatory framework for IP interconnection should replace the current interconnection framework under section 251(c)(2), and on the scope of the Commission's authority to regulate IP interconnection under any such framework. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due on or before December 26, 2025; reply comments are due on or before January 26, 2026. 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 January 26, 2026. </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. 25-304, 25-208, and 17-97, by the following methods: • <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. <FP> 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> </FP> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For further information about this proceeding, please contact Jesse Goodwin, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at (202) 418-0958, or <E T="03">benjamin.goodwin@fcc.gov,</E> or Erik Beith, Competition Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, at <E T="03">erik.beith@fcc.gov,</E> or (202) 418-0756. 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 ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ) in WC Docket Nos. 25-304, 25-208, 17-97; FCC 25-73, adopted on October 28, 2025, and released on October 29, 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-25-73A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act:</E> This document may contain proposed new or revised 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 the 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 ex parte rules. Persons making ex parte 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 ex parte presentations are reminded that memoranda summarizing the presentation must (1) list all persons attending or otherwise participating in the meeting at which the ex parte 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 ex parte meetings are deemed to be written ex parte 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 ex parte presentations and memoranda summarizing oral ex parte 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 ex parte rules. <E T="03">Regulatory Flexibility Act.</E> The Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980, as amended (RFA), requires that an agency prepare a regulatory flexibility analysis for notice-and-comment rulemaking proceedings, unless the agency certifies that “the rule will not, if promulgated, have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.” Accordingly, the Commission has prepared an Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA) concerning potential rule and policy changes contained in this <E T="03">NPRM.</E> The IRFA is set forth below. The Commission invites the general public, in particular small businesses, to comment on the IRFA. Comments must be filed by the deadlines for comments on the <E T="03">NPRM</E> indicated on the first page of this document and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Discussion</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Current State of Interconnection</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Current Arrangements for TDM Interconnection for Voice Services</HD> We seek comment on the (time-division multiplexing) TDM-based interconnection arrangements that remain in place today for all types of providers. What types of carriers continue to require or employ TDM-based interconnection—for example, large incumbent LECs, small or rural incumbent LECs, competitive LECs, or access ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 112k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━