FCC chair says landlords can force bulk internet service on residents

The Federal Communications Commission is eliminating a Biden administration proposal that would have curbed apartment landlords’ ability to force residents into paying for a single internet service provider. As reported by Ars Technica, the new FCC chair, Brendan Carr, will instead allow landlords to implement bulk billing arrangements with ISPs that would make residents pay for internet, cable, and/or satellite television services from a specific provider even if they don’t want them.

“I have ended the FCC’s consideration of a Biden-era proposal that could have increased *by 50 percent* the price that some Americans living in apartments pay for Internet service,” FCC chair Brendan Carr says on X. In a press release, Carr calls Biden’s Bulk Billing proposal “regulatory overreach” and claims it “would have artificially raised the cost of Internet service.”

As Ars mentions, the FCC already bans bulk billing deals that include exclusive service rights, but there isn’t much incentive for other providers to set up a connection that would compete with the service residents already pay for.

If the proposal published last March stood, then Bulk Billing would still have been allowed. Then-FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel claimed it would have reduced broadband costs and increased provider choices for apartments, condos, public housing, and other multi-tenant dwellings by allowing residents to opt out of paying for the buildings’ shared provider.