Data / Federal rules / 2026-16196

Build America: Eliminating Barriers to Wireline Deployments

The Federal Communications Commission published this proposed rule in the Federal Register on August 7, 2026. Comments closed on September 21, 2026.

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What the agency says

In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes and seeks comment on rules that would eliminate state and local requirements that constrain the deployment of modern high-speed wireline infrastructure in violation of section 253 of the Communications Act (Act), particularly through the imposition of excessive delays and fees that impede infrastructure deployments and disincentivize investments in them. Based on the record resulting from a Notice of Inquiry that identified numerous challenges providers face in offering telecommunications services and deploying wireline infrastructure (2025 Notice of Inquiry), this Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeks comment on codifying rules that would: establish a rebuttable presumption that state and local governments have effectively prohibited the provision of wireline telecommunications services if they fail to process all authorizations for use of public rights-of-way to provide wireline telecommunications services or to deploy wireline telecommunications infrastructure within 120 days; limit the fees that state and local governments may charge for a wireline telecommunications authorization to a reasonable approximation of the government's actual, direct costs of managing the rights-of-way with respect to that authorization and establish safe harbor fee levels that presumptively comport with that standard; require that the value of in-kind compensation demanded by state and local governments count toward any safe harbor fee levels adopted by the Commission; and prohibit state and local governments from imposing additional requirements on wireline telecommunications infrastructure deployments on the grounds that the infrastructure may be used to provide other services. The Notice of Proposed Rulemaking also seeks comment on the Commission's authority to enact these proposals.

Key facts

Document number

2026-16196

Type

Proposed rule

Action

Proposed rule

Agency

Federal Communications Commission

Published

August 7, 2026

Comments due

September 21, 2026

Dates

Comments are due on or before September 21, 2026 and reply comments are due on or before November 5, 2026.

Docket

WC Docket No. 25-253; FCC 26-40; FR ID 359677

Code of Federal Regulations

47 CFR 1

Pages

18

The document on federalregister.gov PDF

Other documents from the Federal Communications Commission

Everything from the Federal Communications Commission · Published in August 2026

Read from the Federal Register API, last updated 2026-10-23. The document on federalregister.gov is the official record; dates and dockets can change through later corrections. Free to reuse with credit to SpecStream under CC BY 4.0.