WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2025 \u2013 Public interest advocates urged the Federal Communications Commission this week to preserve transparency measures designed to help consumers compare broadband plans.<\/p>\n
In a Tuesday meeting<\/a> with Chairman Brendan Carr\u2019s office, Harold Feld and John Bergmayer of Public Knowledge pushed back on the FCC\u2019s proposal<\/a> to scale back disclosure requirements for Internet service providers, set for a vote on Oct. 28.<\/p>\n By \u201callowing the erosion of consumer protections, the FCC could create a permission structure for ISPs to continue to act without accountability,\u201d Feld and Bergmayer argued. \u201cInternet service providers should not be given free rein to chip away at affordability and the stopgaps the commission has put in place to protect consumers.\u201d<\/p>\n The rules under review were adopted by the FCC in 2022<\/a> after Congress directed the agency to create standardized \u201cnutrition labels\u201d<\/a> displaying prices, speeds, fees, and other key details of\u00a0Internet plans. <\/p>\n With new leadership at the FCC, the commission is now proposing to<\/a> revise or remove several of those requirements.<\/p>\n Carr said the rulemaking was intended to refine the FCC\u2019s consumer disclosure framework. In a blog post<\/a> previewing the FCC\u2019s October meeting, he wrote that the agency aims to \u201cseparate the wheat from the chaff.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe want consumers to get quick and easy access to the information they want and need to compare broadband plans (as Congress has provided) without imposing unnecessary burdens,\u201d Carr wrote.<\/p>\n Feld and Bergmayer were particularly concerned with the FCC\u2019s proposal to \u201celiminate the requirement that providers itemize discretionary, recurring monthly fees\u201d which represent the costs they choose to pass through to consumers and which vary by consumer location.<\/p>\n \u201cBroadband consumer labels are meant to provide the public with a clear understanding of what they are paying for and ensure no costs are obscure or misleading,\u201d Feld and Bergmayer said.<\/p>\n The FCC\u2019s notice of proposed rulemaking, they warn, \u201cask[s] how the label can be improved, but focuses solely on weakening requirements.\u201d<\/p>\n Broadband industry and advocacy groups also met separately with staff from the offices of Commissioners Anna Gomez and Olivia Trusty this week to press their views on the agency\u2019s plan.<\/p>\n Representatives from New America\u2019s Open Technology Institute, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance met with Trusty\u2019s office on Monday<\/a> and Gomez\u2019s office on Tuesday<\/a> to reiterate their opposition to eliminating label requirements.<\/p>\n The groups told FCC staff that striking the requirement that providers itemize discretionary recurring fees \u201cwould invite mischief, lead to bill shock, and undermine competition.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n They argued that even apart from label design, providers should be required to give customers an itemized breakdown of charges and fees before completing a transaction, ensuring that pricing was transparent at the point of sale.<\/p>\n One industry group, however, expressed strong support for the rollback.\u00a0<\/p>\n In meetings with staff from Gomez’s and Carr\u2019s offices, the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association urged the FCC to drop rules it views as unnecessary or duplicative, including the requirement that providers maintain archived labels and disclose machine-readable data.<\/p>\n WISPA also asked the FCC to make the labeling regime voluntary for smaller providers.<\/p>\n \u201cSmaller broadband providers, such as those within WISPA\u2019s membership, should not be required to expend the time, cost and effort to change their current broadband labels,\u201d Louis Peraertz, vice president of policy for WISPA, wrote.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Oct. 24, 2025 \u2013 Public interest advocates urged the Federal Communications Commission this week to preserve transparency…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223239,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[1638,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-223238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-internet","tag-internet","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}