Dive Brief:

• The Federal Communications Commission has withdrawn its notice of proposed rulemaking for a potential ban on bulk billing agreements for broadband services in housing.
• The FCC cleared its docket for all items in circulation from the Biden administration on Jan. 24, including the notice for the potential bulk billing ban. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, newly appointed by President Donald Trump, announced the end of the proposal in a statement on Monday.
• Carr said that a ban on bulk billing arrangements, wherein property owners and broadband companies arrange to provide exclusive service agreements at residential properties, would increase broadband prices for residents by up to 50%. 

Dive Insight:

“This regulatory overreach from Washington would have hit families right in their pocketbooks at a time when they were already hurting from the last Administration’s inflationary policies,” Carr said in the statement. “That is why you saw a broad and bipartisan coalition of groups opposing the plan. After all, seniors, students, and low-income individuals would have been hit particularly hard.”

The initial ban proposal, announced by former FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel last March, said that these types of arrangements require tenants of a given property to pay for a certain provider’s service whether or not they used it. The proposed rule would have allowed individual tenants to opt out of bulk billing agreements. 

"Everyone deserves to have a choice of broadband provider," Rosenworcel said in her announcement. "That is why it is not right when your building or apartment complex chooses that service for you, saddling you with unwanted costs … This proposal shuts down these practices. It boosts competition and consumer choice and builds on our ongoing efforts to improve broadband transparency." 

The National Multifamily Housing Council and the National Apartment Association both pushed back at the proposal at the time, stating that it would disincentivise investment in broadband access at residential properties. Both organizations joined the Washington, D.C.-based Real Estate Technology and Transformation Center to applaud its withdrawal in a Jan. 27 statement. 

The coalition said that bulk billing arrangements allow owners to negotiate for lower prices for their residents, sometimes by up to 50%, and remove access barriers for individuals such as credit checks, security deposits, equipment rentals and installation fees.

“We’re glad to see that Chairman Carr has taken banning bulk billing off the table. That’s a huge win for renters,” said Sharon Wilson Géno, president of the NMHC, in the statement.