The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) opened a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on December 22, 2022 to seek comment on how to “promote and facilitate equal access to broadband internet service for everyone, with the goal of creating a framework for combatting digital discrimination that has caused harm to historically excluded and marginalized communities.”
According to a release by the Law Firm of Bradley Werner based in Woodbury, Minnesota, the NPRM “has the potential to impact local governments’ ability to ensure equitable broadband deployment throughout their communities as well as local rights-of-way management generally.”
The rulemaking will also look at revising the FCC’s consumer complaint process to accommodate complaints about digital discrimination, create a model of best practices for states and localities, and draft additional rules to prevent “digital discrimination of access,” a term which the NPRM will be defining.
The work is being undertaken to flesh out statutory language in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Comments are due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, which is anticipated to be sometime this month. Bradley Werner emphasized that local governments “have the opportunity to proactively propose rules and rule changes that support local authority.”
In the 153-page notice, the Commission talked about the positive role cable franchising has had in enforcing buildout and system upgrades, and specifically recommended that “agreements to use the rights-of-way should reflect that the privilege of using public assets comes with an obligation to provide a benefit to the public ... .” Here in Wisconsin, as a result of 2007 Act 42, our State no longer requires cable operators to fully build out their systems in cities. Nor does the State require system upgrades, which has allowed Charter Spectrum to carry PEG channels using unreliable and outdated technology that degrades the appearance of these channels. Prior to passage of the State Law, cable franchising was in the hands of local governments, which could insist during negotiations that a city be completely wired and be upgraded to meet current state of the art standards.
Bradley Werner stated, “It is critical that local governments…push the Commission to establish rules that support local efforts to respond to the broadband needs of their communities.”
