FCC Waives Certain Network Change Requirements

The Federal Communications Commission waives the filing requirements in the network change disclosure rules adopted under section 251(c)(5) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended (the Act) for a period of two years, unless the waiver is extended prior to its expiration. In the case of short-term network changes and copper retirements, our action also eliminates the associated Bureau public notice process, along with the objection process for interconnected service providers. This waiver is consistent with the FCC’s goal of eliminating unnecessary and burdensome regulations that divert carrier resources from the goal of expediting the transition of the nation’s aging legacy networks to next-generation networks capable of supporting the advanced communications services on which consumers have come to rely, particularly in light of the extraordinary developments in the communications marketplace and the lack of oppositions to the more than 1,100 network change disclosures filed with the Commission since 2021.