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Federal Register / Vol. 86, No. 36 / Thursday, February 25, 2021 / Rules and Regulations potential to discourage service expansion due to a lack of certainty and predictability. Likewise, OUTFRONT
asserts that fixed wireless service providers face uncertain delays and costs due to local regulations that impact their ability to deploy networks efficiently by using all available sites.
The protections the Commission adopts in this document provide broadbandonly service providers with the certainty and predictability they need to build out and deploy fixed wireless networks.
16. The Commissions revised rule also enhances the ability of fixed wireless service providers to deliver reliable high speed internet access to a greater number of unserved or underserved customers. WISPA cites a number of examples where the limits of the existing OTARD rule have precluded the provision of fixed wireless broadband service to areas where access is limited or non-existent.
Common, a wireless internet service provider offering service in the San Francisco Bay Area, maintains that expanding the OTARD rule will enable it to deploy more quickly on residential rooftops to serve more people in suburban neighborhoods that do not otherwise have service. Wav Speed, a wireless internet service provider, claims that extending the OTARD rule to cover all fixed wireless hub and relay antennas will allow it to serve customers in areas where reliable high speed internet is unavailable or inconsistent, providing customers with the educational, vocational, and entertainment benefits that a modern internet connection permits. Az Airnet asserts that there is a vast public need, especially in rural areas, for the use of small rooftops, or towers to bring internet service to those that cannot currently get it, or can only get substandard service. Ionia, a wireless internet service provider serving rural Ionia County, Michigan, and surrounding areas, observes that zoning and landlord restrictions prevent the installation of equipment that would allow the relay of fixed wireless signals to nearby residents.
Ionia indicates that modifying the OTARD rule to allow the placement of antennas at a customers property would allow WISPs to provide high speed broadband services to customers that currently cannot be reached by other means due to terrain or vegetation. MJM Telecom states that it is hampered by current state and local regulations and has turned down thousands of potential customers due to the fact that it cannot put up a small relay hub site allowing them to receive
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these services. By extending the protections of the OTARD rule to fixed wireless hub and relay antennas, the Commission promotes rural prosperity by enabling efficient, modern communications among rural households, businesses, schools, libraries, healthcare centers, and other important community institutions.
17. The record also indicates that updating the OTARD rule will enable consumers to access competing video programming providers. Consumers increasingly stream video services over the internet, instead of consuming such programming through traditional video programming services such as cable or broadcast. As WISPA indicates, the primary benefit of fixed wireless antennas is to secure viewers access to broadband service, which is the worlds largest distributor of video programming services, including those of traditional television stations and networks.
INCOMPAS agrees that updating OTARD to take into account the need for hub and relay antennas for broadband via fixed wireless networks will benefit consumers with better online video distribution. CTIA
provides additional evidence that consumers are increasingly relying on wireless services for video streaming, citing an NTIA internet Use Survey indicating that the proportion of internet users watching video online has grown from 45% in 2013 to 70% in 2017. CTIA explains that video streaming across wireless networks requires multiple antennas to receive programming, including antennas that connect to other antennas or serve other customer locations. Reducing restrictions on the use of fixed wireless hub and relay equipment is therefore consistent with the OTARD rules original goal of increasing consumer access to video programing services.
18. The Commission emphasizes that its revision is narrow in scope and that it maintains the other existing OTARD
restrictions.4 For the OTARD rule to apply, the antenna must be installed on property within the exclusive use or control of the antenna user where the user has a direct or indirect ownership 4 The Commission also notes that installations under the OTARD rule may not constitute an existing wireless tower or base station for purposes of section 6409a of the Spectrum Act of 2012. See Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act of 2012, Public Law 11296, Title VI, 6409a, 126 Stat. 156, 23233 Feb. 22, 2012 codified at 47 U.S.C. 1455a; 47 CFR 1.6100b5. Such installations may not have been reviewed and approved under the local zoning or siting process, or under another state or local regulatory review process, and therefore future modifications of these installations may not qualify for section 6409a streamlined treatment.

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or leasehold interest in the property upon which the antenna is located. The OTARD provisions also apply only to those antennas measuring one meter or less in diameter or diagonal measurement. In addition, the OTARD
rule is subject to an exception for State, local, or private restrictions that are necessary to accomplish a clearly defined, legitimate safety objective, or to preserve prehistoric or historic places that are eligible for inclusion on the National Register of Historic Places, provided such restrictions impose as little burden as necessary to achieve the foregoing objectives, and apply in a nondiscriminatory manner throughout the regulated area. Given that the OTARD rule only applies to antennas meeting the rules size restriction and only to antennas placed in areas where the antennas user has exclusive use or control, the Commissions rule revisions will minimize any potential visual impact on properties, which some commenters raise.
19. The Commission finds the opponents arguments unpersuasive.
First, the Commission continues to recognize property owners rights under the OTARD rule. Because the Commission maintains the exclusive use or control and direct or indirect ownership or leasehold interest restrictions, fixed wireless service providers will still need to negotiate agreements with appropriate parties for the placement of their antennas in areas where the property owner or lessee has exclusive use or control. Contrary to the assertion of MBC and Real Estate Associations, this change does not undermine access negotiations. Rather, the revision expands OTARD
protections to a larger class of agreements negotiated by property owners and lessees, in that the rule will cover more fixed wireless equipment than was previously allowed. For example, the new rule would not apply to the placement of hub and relay antennas on a building rooftop unless the building owner is a customer of the provider, or unless a customer other than the building owner already has a leasehold right to rooftop space and the placement is within that customers exclusive use and control. In the former circumstance, to the extent that the concern is that application of the rule would prevent a building owner from charging a market-based rate for placement of a hub antenna on the rooftop, the Commission notes that will not be the case.5 The revised rule will 5 The Commission therefore disagrees with the National Multifamily Housing Councils claim that
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