FCC Kills Telco Reporting Requirements > There are some non-partisan groups that agree with FCC order

The Institute for Policy Innovation (IPI) applauds the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) announcement Saturday that it will abandon the outdated and discriminatory ARMIS reporting requirements.

In comments filed with the Commission last week, director of the IPI Center for Technology Freedom Bartlett Cleland said these regulatory requirements applied only to a tiny portion of the communications industry, distorted the marketplace with irrelevant data and hindered the deployment of the best products and services to consumers.

Regulatory policy should be technologically neutral, says Cleland, and by ending the requirements for ARMIS reporting, the Commission will level the playing field for those in the marketplace.

When the ARMIS reports were first created they were said to be temporary, and yet, 18 years later, they continued to be required for only a handful of those who competed in the wireline communications marketplace.

"Even if this information had been collected broadly from the vast and rapidly changing communications industry, the fact is that the goal in collecting the information had long since been achieved," said Cleland.

In addition, both the states and FCC itself broadly collected similar data already, and the free market also already provided a more consumer friendly and accessible report.