Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments

FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Part 1</CFR> <DEPDOC>[WT Docket No. 25-276; FCC 25-67; FR ID 318640]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireless Deployments</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 (the FCC or Commission) seeks to advance its Build America Agenda by seeking comment on reforms that would free towers and other wireless infrastructure from unlawful regulatory burdens imposed. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments are due December 31, 2025. Reply Comments are due January 15, 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 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). You may submit comments, identified by WT Docket No. 25-276, by any of 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 a.m. and 4 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. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Jeff Bartlett, FCC, Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, Competition & Infrastructure Policy Division, (202) 418-1994, <E T="03">Jeffrey.Bartlett@fcc.gov.</E> </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 WT Docket No. 25-276; FCC 25-276, adopted and released on September 30, 2025. The full text of this document is available at <E T="03">https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-25-67A1.pdf.</E> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document may contain proposed new or modified information collections. 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 any information collections contained in this document, as required by the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521. In addition, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 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">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 Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ). The IRFA is set forth in Appendix B of the <E T="03">NPRM.</E> 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 first page of this <E T="03">NPRM</E> and must have a separate and distinct heading designating them as responses to the IRFA. <E T="03">Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act.</E> Consistent with the Providing Accountability Through Transparency Act, Public Law 118-9, a summary of this document will be available on <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/proposed-rulemakings.</E> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Introduction</HD> With this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking ( <E T="03">NPRM</E> ), we advance the Commission's Build America Agenda by proposing reforms that would free towers and other wireless infrastructure from regulatory burdens imposed at the state and local level. This NPRM answers President Trump's call across the federal government to expedite, eliminate, and simplify permitting burdens that inhibit economic development, job creation, and energy production. This proceeding also builds on the Commission's successful efforts during President Trump's first term to streamline infrastructure rules, which helped spur significant investment and network buildout. New infrastructure builds remain essential to this nation's 5G leadership. American consumers demand more from their mobile networks as wireless data traffic rises rapidly year-over-year. The number of mobile voice subscriptions has continued to increase year-over-year. In North America alone, experts predict a 12% compound annual growth rate in mobile data traffic per active smartphone between 2024 and 2030. In addition, fixed wireless access (FWA) services, which are provided over the same networks that provide mobile voice and data service, have gained traction in the marketplace and can play a pivotal role in facilitating the delivery of broadband service. Artificial intelligence (AI) is also expected to significantly increase demand on mobile networks. To ensure that mobile service providers can keep pace with consumer demands and needs, we seek to continue the success of the Commission's prior efforts to remove regulatory barriers that would unlawfully inhibit the deployment of wireless infrastructure. This objective, which reflects a longstanding bipartisan priority, is consistent with Congress's stated intent in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 to “provide for a pro-competitive, de-regulatory national policy framework designed to accelerate rapidly private sector deployment of advanced telecommunications and information technologies to all Americans by opening all telecommunications markets to competition . . . .” In this <E T="03">NPRM,</E> we first seek to clarify and potentially expand upon the Commission's rulings under certain permitting provisions of section 6409(a) of the Spectrum Act of 2012 (Spectrum Act) that expedite state or local approval of certain modifications of existing tower and wireless base stations. In particular, in response to court remand, we seek to clarify the meaning of “concealment elements,” which are used by builders to minimize the visual impact of towers and other wireless infrastructure, and to codify these clarifications in § 1.6100 of the Commission's rules, as described in Appendix A. We also ask for comment on other changes that the Commission should consider making to § 1.6100, such as changes related to siting conditions, to further streamline wireless permitting proceedings and facilitate the rapid buildout of wireless infrastructure. Second, we seek comment on whether we should take further steps to ensure that state and local permitting regulations do not prohibit or have the effect of prohibiting the deployment of wireless infrastructure facilities pursuant to sections 253 and 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act. We recognize that some state and local governments have taken important steps to modernize their approach to siting requests. However, in recent years, a number of state and local regulations have inhibited the deployment, densification, and upgrading of wireless networks, resulting in an effective prohibition of 5G wireless services. We seek comment on such regulations, including potential preemption, particularly those that: • Inhibit the deployment of macro cell towers and other wireless facilities; • Impose unreasonable delays of permitting approvals; • Assess disproportionate or otherwise unreasonable fees; • Condition approval on aesthetic or similar criteria; and • Impose other regulatory impediments in violation of the Telecommunications Act and Commission rules. In addition, we seek comment on whether the Commission should consider implementing alternative dispute resolution procedures to facilitate the resolution of permitting disputes. Our goal is to ensure that all state and local permitting regulations that address the deployment of wireless infrastructure are consistent with the requirements of section 6409 of the Spectrum Act and sections 253 and 332(c)(7) of the Communications Act, and do not prohibit or effectively prohibit the provision of service. As an overarching matter, we ask that commenters that responded to our companion Notice of Inquiry construing section 253's statutory provisions to identify portions of that record that bear on factual, policy, economic, or legal issues raised in t ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 126k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━