The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of regulatory activities, is a snapshot of PUC, FCC, legislative, and occasionally court, issues that our regulatory monitoring team uncovers each day. Depending on their significance, some items may be the subject of a TMI Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
Utah
The Public Service Commission of Utah has extended the time for filing comments in connection with CenturyLink’s request to add the American Fork and Orem wire centers to its list of non-impaired wire centers. See the Regulatory Mix dated 7/23/14. Comments are now due August 1, 2014, and reply comments are due August 11, 2014. The extension was granted after the PSC realized that CenturyLink’s notice to CLECs had provided a longer comment period than that adopted by the PSC in its initial notice. (The original dates were July 21, 2014 and July 31, 2014, respectively.) TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see Bulletin dated 6/30/14.
FCC
ETC Designations
The FCC has reminded Eligible Telecommunications Carriers (ETCs) of the need to obtain approval in advance of the transfer of ownership of an ETC. Specifically:
(1) The transfer of control of licenses and other authorizations from an entity already designated as an ETC to another entity that has not been designated as an ETC is insufficient for the transferee itself to assume the ETC status of the acquired ETC. Instead, the transferee must obtain its own designation from the proper designating authority in order to receive reimbursement for Lifeline service. The transferee is an ETC only if the relevant authority determines that the transferee satisfies all the requirements of the Act; and
(2) If an ETC is operating under an FCC-approved compliance plan because it is not offering Lifeline service over its own facilities or a combination of its own and resold facilities, the ETC must obtain prior FCC approval of a change in its plan. The FCC considers a Lifeline provider’s corporate ownership and control to be critical in the compliance plan approval process. Thus, the approval of a compliance plan is limited to the entity, and its ownership, as they are described in the compliance plan approved by the FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau. Any material changes in ownership or control require modification of the compliance plan that must be approved by the Bureau in advance of the changes.
Working Group on Stolen Mobile Devices
The FCC announced the members of the Technological Advisory Council’s (TAC) Working Group on Mobile Device Theft Prevention. The group will develop industry-wide recommendations to mitigate the increasing theft of mobile devices and present them to the FCC for action. The chairs of the group are: (1) · Brian Daly, Director of Core Network and Government/Regulatory Standards, AT&T; (2) Robert Kubik, Director of Communications Policy and Regulatory Affairs, Samsung. Members include representatives from key industries involved with mobile technologies, members of law enforcement, and consumer interest organizations.
