FCC Needs Do-over on Estimates of Cost To Comply With Net Neutrality Transparency Rules, CTIA Says

“Despite vastly increasing the work involved in complying with the enhanced transparency rule, a review of estimated burdens in the PRA Notice (number of respondents, total annual cost, and total annual hours) implies a cost of just $200.75 annually per broadband provider to comply with the enhanced transparency rule, with an average hourly wage well below the federal minimum wage,” CTIA said. The existing transparency rule is “already extremely burdensome,” the association said. The 2015 rules also require carriers to disclose promotional rates, fees and surcharges, all data caps or data allowance, and “disclose detailed performance data that will now include information on ‘packet loss’ in addition to speed and latency, that is measured in terms of average performance over a reasonable period of time and during times of peak usage.”

AT&T said the net neutrality order’s enhanced transparency rules required broadband providers to collect and report a slew of new data and metrics, and in new forms and frequency. But AT&T said the FCC didn't provide sufficient information on what specific data was being targeted, as an FCC notice “falls astonishingly short of what is required,” offering only limited and skewed analysis of the compliance burdens. The notice is “so legally deficient that interested parties have effectively been denied any meaningful opportunity to comment,” the telco said, urging the FCC to start over and issue a new notice.

AT&T ridiculed the FCC’s estimates that 3,188 respondents would take an average 28.9 hours to comply, resulting in a total industry burden of 92,133 staff hours costing $640,000. “These estimates are absurd on their face,” the telco said, noting the FCC was estimating average company costs as $200 with “mythical engineers and other employees” being paid about $6.95 an hour, which is below the federal minimum wage. “These estimates are so far below any range of plausibility that they cannot be taken seriously as legitimate PRA analysis,” AT&T said. “No reasonable OMB would approve these collections.” Although no precise estimate is possible, the compliance burden “will likely be millions, if not tens of millions of dollars for AT&T alone,” the telco added.

The American Cable Association said the FCC was underestimating the incremental burdens imposed by the data collection and reporting obligations of its enhanced transparency rules. The FCC estimated the changes would add 4.5 hours on average for companies to respond, which ACA said “significantly understates” the extra time broadband providers expect to spend complying with the new rules. The small-cable trade group said the new duties to collect and report information on network practices, such as data plans, will add on average 16-24 hours of annual staff work for companies. Duties to notify customers directly if their network usage may trigger a network practice could add another 1,200 hours of annual staff time per company (assuming 100,000 broadband subscribers), ACA said.

The PRA notice “is predicated on flawed assumptions that grossly underestimate the information collection burdens and costs, especially for small broadband Internet access service providers,” the Wireless ISP Association said. “The Commission must not allow its premature and unreliable calculations to be the basis for imposing on small providers the enhanced disclosure obligations adopted in the 2015 Order.”