Internet Service Providers Editing and Proofreading Services

Instruction 2 of a Federal Register notice takes effect on September 14, 2026. Instruction 3 of the same notice has no effective date at all.¹ The dated instruction revises paragraph (b) of 47 CFR 8.1, which carries two definitions. The undated one changes what a broadband consumer label shows, where it appears, and what has to be said at a telephone point of sale, and it deletes three paragraphs.¹

The number moved because a different section was deleted

The label rule holds its present number because another section lost it. On August 8, 2025 the Wireline Competition Bureau published a document conforming several rule parts to the rules actually in effect, and two of its amendatory instructions run in sequence.² The fourth reads "Remove § 8.1." The fifth reads "Redesignate § 8.2 as § 8.1."² A manual citing 47 CFR 8.2 for the label was citing the right section between the 2024 redesignations and that day, and has been citing a number in use by nothing since.

The deletion was a consequence of litigation. The order at issue was Safeguarding and Securing the Open Internet, published at 89 FR 45404 on May 22, 2024.³ The Sixth Circuit set it aside in Ohio Telecom Ass'n v. FCC, decided January 2, 2025, concluding that "we grant the petitions for review and set aside the FCC's Safeguarding Order."⁴ The source note under the current section records three redesignations, at 89 FR 45554, at 89 FR 61272, and at 90 FR 38408.⁵

One notice, three instructions, one date

The Commission published amendments to the section on August 13, 2026, and the notice carries three numbered instructions.¹ The first states that the authority citation for part 8 continues to read as before.¹ The second revises paragraph (b), which defines broadband internet access service, and adds a definition of passthrough fee.¹ That definition rests on three conditions.¹ The charge is imposed by a government entity or third-party infrastructure owner rather than set by the provider, it represents costs recovered as a separate charge, and it varies by consumer location.¹

The third instruction is the one that changes what a label shows, and it opens with its own status. It opens with the words "Delayed indefinitely, further amend § 8.1 by" and then revises paragraphs (a)(1) and (2) and removes and reserves paragraphs (a)(3), (5), and (7).¹ The dates line assigns one date and excepts that instruction: "Effective September 14, 2026, except for instruction 3 (§ 8.1(a)), which is delayed indefinitely."¹ The Commission will publish a document announcing the effective date.¹

Reading the notice by its summary rather than by its instruction numbers therefore inverts it. What takes effect in September is two definitions. The label's content, its format, and the channels it is shown through all sit in the instruction with no date at all.

What the undated instruction would do

Three changes in instruction 3 reach the form itself. The prescribed content and format move out of the regulation itself.¹ They pass from "figure 1 to this paragraph (a)(1)" to a document the paragraph names and locates at a web address.¹ A label would itemize monthly fees not included in the monthly price, except that passthrough fees may be presented in the aggregate.¹ A provider choosing the maximum "up to" form must also break that amount into government-imposed and third-party categories and give the types of fees in each.¹

Revised paragraph (a)(2) reaches where the label appears. On a provider website an icon or link connecting directly to the label may stand in for the label itself.¹ It has to be clearly identified as a way to access the label for the advertised plan, and displayed in close proximity to that plan.¹ At a telephone point of sale the requirement is satisfied by orally summarizing six named fields, and the paragraph says that "Verbatim recitation of the label is not required to satisfy this obligation."¹

What holds either way

Neither instruction amends paragraph 8.1(a)(4). The label is provided in English "and in any other languages in which the broadband internet access service provider markets its services in the United States."⁵ A provider adding a marketing language falls within that paragraph whatever happens to the rest of the section.

Neither instruction amends paragraph 8.1(a)(6), which states the label's standing directly. It provides that the label "is not a safe harbor from the transparency rule or any other requirements established by the Commission."⁵

Reading a citation is not reading a rule

Which plans a provider offers, what its speeds and fees are, and whether a given presentation satisfies the Commission are the provider's questions, answered with its own regulatory counsel. An editor decides none of it. Every manuscript that reaches us is treated as confidential.

Dates and citations answer to published text. A manual citing 47 CFR 8.2 for the label is citing a number that was redesignated in August 2025. A compliance calendar giving September 14, 2026 for the label changes has taken the date from the notice and attached it to the wrong instruction. A procedure describing the spreadsheet duty as ended has anticipated an instruction that has no effective date yet. The notice, its dates line, and the section's source note settle all three.