Commissioner Gomez Slams Proposal to Pare Back Broadband Labeling

In what Commissioner Anna Gomez repeatedly called “one of the most anti-consumer items I have seen,” the FCC today adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to eliminate some of the requirements from its 2022 broadband “nutrition label” order. While Gomez complained that the proposals would prevent consumers from finding valuable information, a 2-1 majority claimed some of the requirements represented an unneeded burden to ISPs.

Chairman Brendan Carr said that the FCC’s order did not closely follow the statutory framework Congress established in 2021 when it passed a statute to establish the transparency rules. “Rather than focusing on the information that consumers want and need, the agency added costly requirements that are unrelated to a consumer’s purchasing decision,” Carr said. “Since the labels became available, some have said that finding the needed information can be a ‘Sisyphean task,’ or even feel like a game of, ‘Where’s Waldo,’ when consumers view the labels.”

Among the requirements the Commission now proposes to eliminate:

• Requiring ISPs to read labels to consumers over the phone.
• Itemizing state and local passthrough fees for each location.
• Providing information about the now-defunct Affordable Connectivity Program.
• Displaying labels in customer portals.
• Archiving information about ISP services for two years after the ISP no longer offers them.

“If a customer calls a broadband service provider to ask about what is included in the cost of internet service in their area, the company would no longer be required to provide the details, because the FCC apparently thinks that sales do not occur over telephone calls,” Gomez said.

Some ISPs market their services in languages other than English, but the new label rules eliminate a rule to publish labels in other languages. “What adds insult to injury is that the FCC does not even explain why this proposal is necessary,” she said.

Gomez also said that the FCC should be looking for ways to make labels more visible to consumers. The current rules require ISPs to display labels at the point of sale and on an online portal, with the rulemaking seeking to eliminate the portal requirement.

Commissioner Olivia Trusty noted that the NPRM arose from the Commission’s ongoing “Delete, Delete, Delete” initiative, in which those regulated by the FCC have pointed to current rules that may be outdated and outlived their usefulness. She said that stakeholders often find rules that inadvertently defeat the purpose of being adopted in the first place. “If label requirements confuse or mislead consumers or otherwise diminish the usefulness of broadband labels, the commission should take steps to fix them,” Trusty said.

As the FCC was implementing the labeling rules in 2024, NRTC’s CrowdFiber and Pivot combined to offer the Broadband Consumer Labels service, which helps members offering internet to quickly and easily generate new labels as needed and to archive them according to the FCC’s rules.