Under Commissioner Brendan Carr, expect to see a renewed focus on streamlining the rules for fiber and other wired infrastructure deployment. Commissioner Carr has pointed out that between 2016 and 2019, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was able to accelerate infrastructure builds for new wireless cell sites—the building blocks for 5G—by reforming permitting rules, putting in place guardrails to address outlier fees and delays imposed at the state and local levels on small-cell projects and making other updates to modernize the permitting process. Commissioner Carr has proposed that the FCC now “explore similar action for the deployment of other wired infrastructure,” which we read as pertaining to fiber-optic cable, such as by imposing limits on the fees that local and state governments can charge for reviewing those wireline applications, and time restrictions on the government’s decision-making process.
