The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to rip-up rules it claims will help operators speed up deployment efforts.

As part of Chairman Brendan Carr’s "delete, delete, delete" effort, the changes are part of a bid to reduce regulatory burdens by giving providers the means to invest more resources toward modernizing their networks.

On the cutting room floor are filing requirements around network change disclosure mandates and applications for when older technology is phased out. While operators would still be required to obtain an authorization were they to phase out copper, the changes mean firms would not need to alert the agency if they were to make other changes to their network.

“For too long, outdated rules and regulations have forced providers to maintain aging copper infrastructure and to keep consumers on broken, antiquated networks,” Carr noted in a statement. “One provider alone reports that they have been spending about $6 billion a year maintaining copper lines for a dwindling number of consumers. That changes today.”

Speed has been a central focus of the Carr-led FCC, with the chairman taking issue with the prior administration’s apparent lack of agility when it came to galvanizing network upgrades.

That emphasis on swiftness has seen it look to speed up the removal of copper networks as well as revamp the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) program under a “tech-neutral approach” to de-prioritize fiber, instead welcoming satellite connectivity, among other technologies.

The latest streamlining effort also provides blanket authority for carriers to grandfather legacy voice services, lower-speed data services, and interconnected voice-over-IP (VoIP) service provisioned over copper wire.

Positioning the changes as also a means to stop “bad actors” using outdated legal requirements regarding old technologies, Carr said: “Requirements that would leave communities stuck on aging copper will be preempted so that Americans in every community benefits from new investments and next-gen networks.”