diff --git a/docker/telemetry/xrpld-telemetry-mainnet.cfg b/docker/telemetry/xrpld-telemetry-mainnet.cfg
index 4393ad398a..816ada7275 100644
--- a/docker/telemetry/xrpld-telemetry-mainnet.cfg
+++ b/docker/telemetry/xrpld-telemetry-mainnet.cfg
@@ -125,10 +125,9 @@ service_instance_id=xrpld-mainnet
 endpoint=http://localhost:4318/v1/traces
 metrics_endpoint=http://localhost:4318/v1/metrics
 exporter=otlp_http
-# Mainnet has high span throughput across peer/ledger/consensus.
-# 0.05 keeps Tempo/collector load sustainable. Raise to 1.0 for
-# short debugging windows only.
-sampling_ratio=1.0
+# Mainnet has high span throughput across peer/ledger/consensus. Head
+# sampling is fixed at 1.0 (sample everything) and not configurable;
+# reduce Tempo/collector load with collector-side tail sampling.
 batch_size=512
 batch_delay_ms=5000
 max_queue_size=2048