Association Advocates Broadband Competition Rule to Help

Apartment, Condo and Low-Income Housing Consumers

INCOMPAS welcomed new rules from the FCC that went into effect last week, which are intended to bring more broadband choice and competition to Americans living in apartment buildings, condominiums and low-income housing and working in malls, office buildings, and other multiple tenant environments. Starting last Monday, large internet service providers and building owners no longer are able to engage in exclusive or graduated revenue sharing agreements that amount to an end-run around the FCC’s prohibition on exclusive access agreements and must disclose any exclusive marketing arrangements they have with landlords.

“Thanks to the bipartisan push to unlock broadband competition in condo, apartment and other multi-tenant environments, these consumers—who make up an astounding 30 percent of Americans—now have the right to fight for broadband competition,” said INCOMPAS CEO Chip Pickering. “This should signal the end of a monopoly roadblock as large ISPs and big landlords will no longer be able to enter into sweetheart deals and agreements that hold back competition and the deployment of new networks. The FCC rules on MTEs should help unlock tenants from monopoly living and allow them to upgrade their homes and businesses with faster speed internet that costs less and comes with better customer service.” 

Last week, President Biden met with the White House Competition Council to discuss the significant progress made since he signed the Competition Executive Order just over a year ago, and to call on the Council to continue taking aggressive actions to deliver concrete costs savings to American families.

The July 9, 2021, Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy established the Competition Council to drive forward the Administration’s whole-of-government effort to promoting competition. Its purpose is to coordinate progress on the Order’s 72 initiatives to restore competition in the economy, to collaborate on addressing pressing competition problems across the economy, and to find new ways of delivering concrete benefits to America’s consumers, workers, farmers and small businesses. The Council is comprised of ten Cabinet members and the heads of seven independent agencies.

The President commended the Council’s members for the impressive work done over the last year, and highlighted several examples of initiatives including from the FCC in delivering cost-savings for American consumers. The FCC is pursuing similar rules that will require internet companies to display a standardized “Broadband Nutrition Label” that discloses their monthly prices, fees, and internet speeds—so customers can see which company is cheapest and companies will have to compete for business.

Sens. Mark Warner (D-Va.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), joined by Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.V.), introduced the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act (BGTTA) — legislation to amend the Internal Revenue Code to ensure that funding directed for the implementation of broadband from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) and the American Rescue Plan (ARP) will not be considered taxable income.

Grants awarded to industry for the purposes of broadband deployment are currently factored into a company’s income and will soon be subjected to additional taxes due to scheduled changes to the corporate tax code that kick in beginning next year – unless Congress acts now to address the problem. This new bipartisan legislation moves to exclude broadband deployment grants awarded through the IIJA and ARP from an organization’s income, ensuring the entirety of federal dollars awarded to companies for the purpose of deploying broadband around the country can be used wholly for that purpose, rather than making their way back to the government through taxes.

The FCC issued an NPRM proposing new rules to fight malicious robotext campaigns. The FCC proposes to require mobile wireless providers to block illegal text messages at the network level that purport to be from invalid, unallocated or unused numbers, and numbers on a Do-Not-Originate list. The FCC also seeks comment on:

• The extent spoofing is a problem with regard to text messaging today and whether there are measures the FCC can take to encourage providers to identify and block texts that appear to come from spoofed numbers
• Applying caller ID authentication standards to text messaging.

Comments are due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register; replies are due 45 days after publication.

The public notice on filing equipment replacement program status updates was published in the Federal Register on September 30, 2022. The public notice reminded recipients in the Secure and Trusted Communications Networks Reimbursement Program of their obligation to file status updates with the FCC every 90 days, beginning on the date the bureau approved their applications until the obligation to file expires. All initial status updates are due on October 13, 2022.

Legislation led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), a senior member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, passed the Senate unanimously last Wednesday:

• The Small Business Broadband and Emerging Information Technology Enhancement Act, led by Sens. Shaheen and John Kennedy (R-La.), would improve programs operated by the Small Business Administration (SBA) to address problems around the lack of broadband internet and other emerging information technology resources, and better assist small businesses in accessing and successfully adopting these tools.
• The Small Business Cyber Training Act, led by Sens. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Shaheen, would require the Small Business Administration to establish a training program for small business development centers (SBDCs) to prepare counselors in cyber planning assistance. Specifically, the bill would require SBDCs to have employees certified in cyber strategy counseling for small businesses.
• The One Stop Shop for Small Business Compliance Act, led by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Shaheen, would require the SBA to create a centralized website that houses compliance guides pertaining to federal regulations impacting small businesses. The House of Representatives passed a version of Shaheen and Cornyn’s bill earlier this year. Because of last week's action in the Senate, the bill will head to President Biden to be signed into law.
• The Disaster Assistance for Rural Communities Act, led by Sens. Jim Risch (R-Id.) and Shaheen, would amend the SBA’s threshold for disaster declarations to allow the administrator to issue a disaster declaration for rural communities that have been included in a Presidential public assistance-only disaster declaration if the governor of the state has requested the declaration; and at least one homeowner, small business or nonprofit had significant damage.