Oct. 10 marks the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) deadline for broadband providers to implement broadband consumer labels at each point of sale.
Similar to nutrition labels, the broadband labels are meant to improve transparency and allow customers to better understand broadband offerings. While this aims to make things easier to understand for customers, the implementation doesn’t have to be difficult for providers either. Enter NISC’s Broadband Consumer Labels solution.
“It was super easy,” said Bethany Chinadle, Chief Operations Officer at Triangle Telephone Cooperative Association in Havre, Mont. “We only have 12 labels, and other companies might have more, but once we decided on our unique identifiers, the whole process took us 30 minutes start to finish.”
Chinadle recently presented a session on NISC’s Broadband Consumer Labels at the 2024 NISC Member Information Conference (MIC). In the session, Chinadle detailed the steps needed to take to implement the solution, which allows labels to be created only once and shared between the various points of sale that are needed to showcase them per the FCC requirement.
“The NISC solution being integrated into SmartHub and SmartHub Order Management really streamlines everything,” Chinadle said. “We only had to create our labels once. The HTML code was provided so we could put it on our website, and the machine-readable requirement was provided by NISC. It was set up to where we could just do a screen capture from the Broadband Consumer Labels page and paste it into our print materials. Our graphic designers didn’t have to re-create anything.”
Chinadle said the most difficult part of the process was creating the unique plan identifiers prior to creating the labels. The identifiers include an F or an M, for fixed or mobile, along with a provider’s FCC Registration Number (FRN). The rest of the identifier is up to the provider. Chinadle and Triangle decided to include download and upload speeds along with their charge code to create something unique and reusable.
“We were trying to think of what we need now and how that will translate into the future,” Chinadle said. “That way, whatever we decide can be standard year over year rather than trying to remember what we did five years ago. We tried to future proof them where we can keep the same logic the whole time.”
Once the unique plan identifiers had been determined, NISC’s Broadband Consumer Labels solution made creation and integration simple across both digital and print materials. The integration process including label creation took Triangle 30 minutes.
“It was the best rollout NISC has had with their product development team getting a solution out there,” Chinadle said.
The intention of the consumer labels is to help broadband customers better understand plans and pricing. The benefit for providers, however, can be from better understanding the competition.
“If you compete against a large carrier that does promotional pricing and all these gimmicks, it’ll be easier for you to market against them,” Chinadle said. “Right now, it’s hard to know what your competitors are actually offering, so you can shop the competition and promote the benefits of your business.”
The Oct. 10 deadline is quickly approaching, but NISC can help. Visit the NISC Community for information on the solution, including overview and training videos, documentation on implementation and Learn It Live recordings.
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Also, keep an eye out for MIC Remixed, where you’ll have an opportunity to hear Bethany’s presentation – Broadband Consumer Labels (SERV-B 073). The session was recognized with a Member Experience Award as the Top Broadband Session at the 2024 MIC.