The industry is awash with regulatory changes, and I’ll likely be writing more blogs like this listing some of the changes that impact small ISPs.

Supreme Court Refuses Second Review of NY Low Rates. ISPs were irate when the Supreme Court refused to hear their appeal case against the State of New York that requires ISPs with more than 20,000 customers to provide broadband for as little as $15 per month for qualifying low-income households. The ISPs scrambled and asked the Court a second time to take the case, and the Court declined for a second time. The law is already in effect in the state. Several other states, like California, Massachusetts, and Vermont, are now considering similar legislation.

Feds Talk About Fixing Permits on Public Lands – Again. There was a lot of talk in DC recently about finally fixing issues that make it slow and painful to get a permit to build fiber or other telecom infrastructure on federal land. My recollection is that the last three administrations took a swing at the issue, and yet there has been little meaningful improvement. We’ll have to see if the fourth time is the charm.

One-to-One Consent Law Vacated. The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a ruling from the FCC that could have resulted in far fewer robocalls. In December 2023, the FCC passed a rule that required anybody who wants to call a consumer to have a one-on-one relationship with the called party, meaning the consumer had to either be an existing customer or give explicit permission to be called.

The law was passed because of a practice where marketing companies asks consumers for permission to be called by it or its ‘partners’. Companies that get callers to agree to this expanded permission then sell the lists to the other calling companies for a fee. The buyers of the list then act as if they have permission to call.

FCC Authority to Auction Spectrum? The Senate Commerce Committee held a hearing under Chairman Senator Ted Cruz on February 19 to discuss the topic. There seemed to be bipartisan support for the idea of renewing the FCC’s auction authority. The FCC says that releasing new spectrum for cellular is one of its top priorities.

Tax Free BEAD Funding. Currently, any grant funding given to an ISP creates a taxable event, which means a huge tax penalty for any taxable entity that accepts a BEAD or other grant. I know ISPs who stayed out of BEAD because of this issue. A bipartisan group of Senators reintroduced the Broadband Grant Tax Treatment Act on February 24, which would make the proceeds from infrastructure grants non-taxable. The IRS used to be able to make the taxable/non-taxable decision, but that ability lapsed due to provisions in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.

A New Twist on BEAD. Louisiana got approval from NTIA on January 13 for the broadband grants the state wants to make from the BEAD grant program. It turns out that there is an additional step before Louisiana can tell ISPs to move forward, and the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) also has to give a go-ahead for the funds to be released. That’s a delay that nobody built into their BEAD timelines – and Louisiana and other states are still waiting for NIST approval.