Maryland has too many cooks in the regulatory kitchen

By Nate Norris

Could tennis be effectively played with 6 people? How about 16? Such a distinction is lost on Maryland’s regulatory telecommunication bodies, whose onerous regulations and conflicting requirements turned the installation of a single utility pole into a regulatory feud in Queen Anne’s County, Maryland.

The tale begins with Talkie Communications, a certified telecommunications provider in Maryland that was given a permit last March to build a utility pole on a Maryland highway by the Maryland State Highway Administration. As a certified provider, the decision falls squarely on MD SHA’s authority, and no county permit was required.

This has not been the case in practice, however, as both Queen Anne’s County and Maryland’s Department of Technology have stepped onto the court and interfered in the installation through assertions that certain services provided in combination over the utility pole are subjected to their requirements and fees. These claims go against clearly established FCC rules, obstructing the installation of Talkie’s next generation network and costing consumers more.

Queen Anne County and the MD DoIT have acknowledged that while telephone services such as Talkie’s utility pole permit are not subject to their regulation, the attachments on the utility pole are. Such overreach of regulatory authority only serves to delay infrastructure deployments and increase costs. Co-CEO of Talkie Communications Andrew DeMattia had this to say on the matter:

The State and County imposition of costly requirements are abruptly stopping Talkie’s continued deployment of its next-generation network that could provide amazing new services and capabilities without expensive direct last-mile fiber connections.

Delayed connection through overregulation were trademarks of the Biden Administration. The $42.5 billion BEAD rollout failed to achieve its connectivity goal largely because no amount of funding can speed up inefficient red tape and onerous regulations that were in the way of the program’s implementation.

With the current overregulated environment, Maryland’s development and broadband infrastructure will continue to face roadblocks, stifling growth and leaving the Eastern Shore without next-gen broadband. These regulatory turf wars are precisely the sort of thing that NTIA Administrator Arielle Roth cracked down on to save nearly half of the $42.5 billion appropriated for the BEAD program.