INCOMPAS Backing Maryland ISP’s Preemption Bid
FCC preemption extends to networks providing both broadband and telecom services, the trade group argued.
WASHINGTON, March 30, 2026 – Tech trade group INCOMPAS is backing a Maryland ISP’s bid to preempt state permitting rules.
The outcome will “affect every INCOMPAS member deploying modern multi-use networks,” wrote the group, which represents broadband providers like WOW and Gonetspeed as well as tech giants like Meta and Amazon.
Talkie Communications is asking the FCC to exempt it from county zoning rules and annual fees charged by Maryland’s Department of Information Technology, arguing the state agencies are improperly holding up the deployment of telecommunications networks.
The FCC can block state and local rules that have the effect of prohibiting the deployment of telecom infrastructure. The agency is taking input on additional rules it should consider preempting in an effort to speed up both wireline and wireless network deployments, citing a concern some rules were inhibiting those builds.
Talkie was trying to deploy a pole to hold fixed wireless equipment that it said would provide both broadband and telecom voice services on a “commingled” basis.
Thus, the company is arguing, barriers to its network deployment are barriers to telecom services that the FCC has authority to preempt.
In a March 25 filing, INCOMPAS told the FCC it agreed.
“A municipal restriction or fee that deters the installation of the fiber network necessarily inhibits the provision of the telecommunications service over that same facility,” the group wrote. “This remains true even if the telecom service is only a portion of the network’s use, or is offered by an affiliate or wholesale customer of the broadband provider.
At a minimum, the group said “any broadband network that also enables voice telephony or similar telecom offerings should receive [the Communications Act]’s shield against unjustified barriers.”
The group raised a similar issue in one of the FCC’s existing preemption proceedings, as did infrastructure provider Crown Castle.
Maryland’s Queen Anne’s County maintained in a March 10 filing that Talkie should have to plan on offering telecom service with the equipment at issue in order for any relevant zoning rules to be preempted, which the county said it didn't have evidence of.
In reply comments posted March 24 Talkie claimed the radios at issue actually would deliver telecom voice services on a “commingled” basis with broadband, citing testimony from its co-CEO Andrew DeMattia.
The FCC requires local rules to be applied uniformly among telecom providers, and Talkie claimed it was being discriminated against for offering both telecom and broadband.
“By imposing additional costs and time-consuming burdens on a provider that delivers commingled services with its telecommunications services, the County discriminates in favor of traditional providers that may only provide regulated telecommunications or cable services,” the company wrote.
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