Delete, Delete, Delete

<RULE> FEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSION <CFR>47 CFR Parts 2, 15 and 18</CFR> <DEPDOC>[ET Docket No. 25-133; FCC 25-85; FR ID 326738]</DEPDOC> <SUBJECT>Delete, Delete, Delete</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Federal Communications Commission. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Direct final rule; request for comments. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) continues its efforts to modernize regulatory framework by rescinding facially obsolete provisions of its rules. The Commission has undertaken a sweeping review aimed at eliminating outdated rules, reducing unnecessary regulatory burdens, accelerating infrastructure deployment, promoting network modernization, and spurring innovation. The Commission's objective is to streamline, simplify, and smartly deregulate across multiple fronts simultaneously to better serve the public and support technological progress. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Effective March 27, 2026, unless significant adverse comments are received on or before February 17, 2026. In the event the Commission receives significant adverse comments, the Commission will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> informing the public the provisions of the rule(s) for which significant adverse comments were received and elimination will not take effect. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> You may submit comments, identified by ET Docket No. 25-133, electronically or on paper. For detailed instructions for submitting comments and additional information on the rulemaking process, see the <E T="02">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION</E> section of this document. <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Kathleen Burke of the Office of Engineering and Technology, at <E T="03">Kathleen.Burke@fcc.gov</E> or 202-418-7225. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> This is a summary of the Commission's Direct Final Rule, in ET Docket No. 25-133, FCC 25-85, adopted on December 18, 2025, and released on December 19, 2025. The full text of this document is available for public inspection and can be downloaded at <E T="03">https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-deletes-outdated-rules-long-forgotten-technologies-0.</E> Alternative formats are available for people with disabilities (Braille, large print, electronic files, audio format) by sending an email to <E T="03">fcc504@fcc.gov</E> or calling the Commission's Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau at (202) 418-0530 (voice), (202) 418-0432 (TTY). <E T="03">Comment Period and Filing Procedures.</E> Interested parties may file comments on or before the dates provided in the <E T="02">DATES</E> section of this document. Comments must be filed in GN Docket No. 25-133. Comments may be filed using the Commission's Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS). See Electronic Filing of Documents in Rulemaking Proceedings, 63 FR 24121 (1998). • All filings must be addressed to the Commission's Secretary, Office of the Secretary, Federal Communications Commission. • <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. If more than one docket or rulemaking number appears in the caption of this proceeding, filers must submit two additional copies for each additional docket or rulemaking number. • 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. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Procedural Matters</HD> <E T="03">Paperwork Reduction Act.</E> This document does not contain new or modified information collections subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995 (PRA), 44 U.S.C. 3501-3521. In addition, therefore, it does not contain any new or modified information collection burden for small business concerns with fewer than 25 employees, pursuant to the Small Business Paperwork Relief Act of 2002, 44 U.S.C. 3506(c)(4). <E T="03">Congressional Review Act.</E> The Commission has determined, and the Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget, concurs, that this rule is “non-major” under the Congressional Review Act, 5 U.S.C. 804(2). The Commission will send a copy of this Direct Final Rule to Congress and the Government Accountability Office pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 801(a)(1)(A). <HD SOURCE="HD1">Synopsis</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Introduction</HD> In initiating this proceeding, the Commission generally sought to identify rules that are obsolete, outdated, unlawful, anticompetitive, or otherwise no longer in the public interest. The Commission specifically focuses on the repeal of certain rules managed by the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) in parts 2, 15, and 18 for which prior notice and comment are unnecessary, but for which the Commission elects to provide an opportunity for input on that assessment. Absent any significant adverse comments in response to this document, these rules will be repealed. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> <E T="03">Good Cause to Forgo Notice and Comment.</E> Under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), when an agency for good cause finds that notice and public comment “are impracticable, unnecessary, or contrary to the public interest,” it need not follow notice and comment procedures before modifying or repealing rules. Prior notice and comment are “unnecessary” when “the administrative rule is a routine determination, insignificant in nature and impact, and inconsequential to the industry and to the public.” The Commission has identified 36 rule provisions, totaling 12,008 words and covering more than 25 pages in the Code of Federal Regulations, that no longer serve the public interest because they regulate obsolete technology, are no longer used in practice by the FCC, industry, or the public, or are otherwise outdated or unnecessary. Applying the “good cause” standard discussed above, the Commission concludes that prior notice and comment are unnecessary before repealing the rules identified in the Appendix. <E T="03">Direct Final Rule Process.</E> In this document, the Commission follows the processes previously outlined by the Commission regarding direct final rules, which it briefly summarize here. When the Commission has found that prior notice and comment is unnecessary before modifying or repealing rules, it has adopted the relevant rule change without any additional process. Although the Commission reserves the right to proceed in this manner, it elects in this decision to proceed using what is known as a “direct final rule” process. By proceeding through a direct final rule, the Commission chooses to provide expanded opportunities for public comment even though the “good cause” standard does not legally require it to do so. Under a direct final rule process, rule changes are adopted without prior notice and comment, but are accompanied by an opportunity for the public to file comments—and if the Commission concludes that significant adverse comments have been filed, the relevant rule changes would not take effect until after a full notice and comment process. In particular, the Commission will publish this item adopting direct final rules in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> , and allow for comment from interested parties within 20 days of <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication. Until 20 days after <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication, this shall be a “permit-but-disclose” proceeding for purposes of the Commission's <E T="03">ex parte</E> rules. Because this comment process is directed toward the discrete objective of the direct final rule process, and to avoid unwarranted delay in that process, the Commission prohibits filings addressing the rule changes contemplated in this document more than 20 days after <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication, absent further direction from the Commission published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . This both accords with the purpose of the comment process for direct final rules, and is similar (though not identical) to actions the Commission has taken in other contexts to provide a defined end-point for public filings to enable the Commission to focus its attention on the submissions already before it. The rule revisions in this document will go into effect 60 days after <E T="04">Federal Register</E> publication. If the Commission receives comments on these rule revisions, it will evaluate whether there are significant adverse comments that warrant further procedures before changing the rules. In its assessment, the Commission plans to be guided by the recommendation of the Administrative Conference of the United States (“ACUS”) that “[a]n agency should consider any comment received during direct final rulemaking to be a significant adverse comment if the comment explains why: a. The [direct final] rule would be inappropriate, including challenges to the rule's underlying premise or approach; or b. The [direct final] rule would be ineffective or unacceptable without a change.” If the Commission concludes that a significant adverse comment has been filed, the Office of Engineering and Technology will publish a timely withdrawal in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> to prevent the rule revisions from going into effect until any appropriate additional procedures have been followed. If a significant adverse comment is filed only with respect to a subset of the rule revisions ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 21k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━