{"id":231243,"date":"2025-10-29T02:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-29T02:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231243\/"},"modified":"2025-10-29T02:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T02:35:08","slug":"fcc-votes-to-gut-broadband-nutrition-labels-heres-what-it-means-for-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/231243\/","title":{"rendered":"FCC Votes to Gut Broadband ‘Nutrition Labels.’ Here\u2019s What It Means for You"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019ve shopped for an internet plan<\/a> in the past year and a half, you\u2019ve likely seen a nutrition label<\/a> detailing the key facts about each available plan. On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission voted to water down its requirements.<\/p>\n

Tuesday’s vote was technically a \u201cNotice of Proposed Rulemaking,\u201d which will allow public comment before a final vote. If it\u2019s passed — a highly likely outcome given the commission\u2019s Republican majority — internet service providers will no longer be required to read the labels to customers over the phone, give a complete accounting of the fees on broadband plans and make the labels available in a subscriber\u2019s account portal.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been writing about broadband for seven years, and I can tell you firsthand how difficult it is to find basic plan information from many ISPs. Between price increases, hidden fees and advertised speeds, it felt like you needed a law degree to find out what you\u2019d actually be paying each month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When broadband labels were implemented in April 2024, all of that changed overnight. You could suddenly see the real price that would show up on your bill today — and years down the line. Now, the FCC looks poised to return internet customers to the dark.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the start of whittling away at these rules,\u201d Raza Panjwani<\/a>, senior policy counsel at New America\u2019s Open Technology Institute, told CNET. \u201cYou get this two-step, right? You make it less useful. Then you say, \u2018Oh, look, it’s not that useful. We should get rid of it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\"fcc-broadband-labels.png\" <\/p>\n

A sample of the FCC’s broadband consumer labels for home internet and mobile broadband plans.<\/p>\n

FCCWhat happens next<\/p>\n

After Tuesday\u2019s vote, there will be 30 days for public comment, then another 30 days to reply to those comments. By the end of the year, the FCC will vote on whether to adopt the rules permanently.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Anna Gomez, the lone Democrat on the commission, called the proposal “one of the most anti-consumer items I have seen.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat adds insult to injury is that the FCC does not even explain why this proposal is necessary,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cMake it make sense. Instead of scaling back the information that customers receive, we should be making sure that, in fact, they can benefit from the labels.\u201d<\/p>\n

Broadband labels have generally been well-received by customers. One 2024 survey study<\/a> of more than 2,500 broadband consumers found that 85% of respondents found them useful for comparison shopping.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Carr says existing labels add confusion<\/p>\n

\u201cSince the labels became available, some have said that finding the needed information can be a \u2018Sisyphean task,\u2019 or even feel like a game of Where’s Waldo,\u201d said FCC Chair Brendan Carr. \u201cThey aren’t finding the information they need to make an informed decision or not finding it in an efficient and timely manner.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to argue with Carr that the broadband labels are difficult to locate. When I tried to find the labels through Xfinity and Spectrum, I first had to put in an eligible address, and even then, they were buried at the bottom of the page.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"screenshot-showing-placement-of-broadband-labels-on-spectrum-website\" <\/p>\n

Spectrum\u2019s broadband labels appear at the bottom of the checkout page.<\/p>\n

Spectrum<\/p>\n

\u201cThese labels are often sort of buried deep in the sales flow,\u201d says Panjwani.<\/p>\n

But rather than adopt rules that would make the labels easier to find or interpret, Carr voted to make them appear less often.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Too many fees to count<\/p>\n

One of the more innocuous-sounding requirements on the chopping block is one that requires ISPs to \u201citemize state and local passthrough fees that vary depending on location of the consumer.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe \u2026 that itemizing can lead to a proliferation of labels and of labels so lengthy that the fees overwhelm other important elements of the label,\u201d the FCC\u2019s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n

In other words, ISPs include so many fees on their plans that they shouldn\u2019t be required to list them all.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou’re telling us that you’ve made up so many fees to put under the fold that you can’t fit them on a label, and that’s unfair?\u201d said Panjwani. \u201cYou know, you could just include that in your cost of service. Nothing is stopping you from doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The bottom line<\/p>\n

These changes to the broadband labels sound relatively harmless on their own. I can\u2019t argue against removing the requirement that ISPs let customers know about the Affordable Connectivity Program<\/a>, which stopped accepting new enrollments nearly two years ago. But taken together, they have consumer advocates sounding the alarm.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere have been some actions by the commission that are kind of anti-consumer,\u201d Alisa Valentin<\/a>, broadband policy director at the nonprofit Public Knowledge, told CNET. \u201cI worry that if we chip away a little bit here, what’s going to stop them from trying to come up with another proposal to chip away some more to the point that the labels are essentially useless?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the next 30 days, anyone is free to comment on the proposed rules to the broadband labels. If you\u2019d like to share your thoughts on broadband labels, you can submit a comment through the FCC\u2019s portal<\/a> by typing in 22-2 in the Proceeding field.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you\u2019ve shopped for an internet plan in the past year and a half, you\u2019ve likely seen a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[102,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-231243","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nutrition","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-nutrition","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231243","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=231243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}