Kicking off a Summer of Change

Things can change quickly in tech and telecom.  And that is certainly the case at the FCC this week!

I am referring, of course, to the public announcement just out that the World Radiocommunication Conference Advisory Committee has scheduled meetings for several informal working groups.  Interested persons should check it out.

In all seriousness, though, I want to express my thanks and appreciation to Commissioner Starks and Commissioner Simington for their public service, as both have announced today that they will be departing the FCC by the end of this week.  I wish them all the best in their next endeavors.

But, as the saying goes, the show must go on.  The FCC continues to have a busy agenda, and the agency will keep delivering great results for the American people.

There’s a lot of time between now and our scheduled June 26 Commission meeting.  So I wanted to lay out a couple of items that I would like to get done at the meeting if we can.  Stay tuned on that front.  What does he mean by that?  I just said stay tuned.  We always make a final decision about the Commission meeting and its agenda closer to the meeting date.  We will do so again here.

Turning to the agenda.  One effort we have been undertaking at the FCC is on the good government front.  That includes identifying and eliminating regulations that are effectively dead wood—rules that have been overtaken by events and in many cases no longer serve any purpose at all.  Our dated and reticulated set of cable television rate regulations are one such example.  That is why I would like to consider an order that gets rid of those obsolete and unworkable rules.  If adopted, we would remove 77 rules and requirements that have no meaningful application today.

We also have needless rules that have raised the costs of our Broadband Data Collection, which serves as the foundation of the FCC’s broadband maps.  In particular, when providers report coverage and availability data to the Commission, that data must be certified by both a corporate officer and a “certified professional engineer.”   But there is a lack of engineers who both specialize in RF engineering and broadband network design and also have completed the educational and testing requirements to get “certified” by a state licensure board.  That is why the FCC has been waiving the rule since its inception.  Now, the Commission will consider an order that would eliminate the current standard for “certified” engineers and allow “qualified” engineers to certify data filings.

Next up will be a proposal to help bring our accessibility rules up-to-date.  TTY-based technology enables people with hearing or speech disabilities to send a typed message to a relay center where a communications assistant makes a voice call to another party and then relays the call back and forth.  The FCC’s rules require that TTY-based devices are capable of communicating in the ASCII format.  That rule might have made sense in the early 1990s when ASCII was considered “a superior technology” for TTY transmission.  But it doesn’t in 2025 when ASCII calls account for approximately 0.01% of TTY-based communications.  That is why I am teeing up for vote a proposal that would remove the ASCII requirement so Relay Service providers no longer have to maintain costly ASCII-compatible hardware and software systems and can invest in their provision of service instead.

In the end, summer is a great time to embrace change.  It is a time of new schedules for many families, kids getting out of school, and a new composition of the Federal Communications Commission.