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.
ENERGY & TELECOM
Ohio
The PUC has adopted new rules for the provision of attachments to a pole, duct, conduit, or right-of-way (collectively pole) owned or controlled by a utility under rates, terms, and conditions that are just and reasonable. The new rules will become effective when filed with the Secretary of State. A public utility will be required to provide an attaching entity with nondiscriminatory access to any pole unless there is insufficient capacity or for reasons of safety, reliability, and generally applicable engineering purposes. The rules address the timelines for access to public utility poles, denial of access, and removal of facilities. The rates, terms, and conditions for nondiscriminatory access to public utility poles will be established through negotiated agreements.
FCC
August 8 Open Meeting
The FCC announced the agenda for its August 8, 2014 Open Meeting. The agenda is as follows:
- Part 17 Antenna Structure: A Report and Order to streamline and update the rules governing the construction, marking, and lighting of antenna structures. These updates will improve efficiency, reduce regulatory burdens, and enhance compliance with tower painting and lighting requirements, while continuing to ensure the safety of pilots and aircraft passengers nationwide.
- Enabling Nationwide Text-to-911 Service: A Second Report and Order and Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that: establishes deadlines for covered text providers to be capable of delivering texts to appropriate 911 public safety answering points; and seeks comment on proposals to improve text-to-911 service, such as through provision of better location information technology and roaming support.
The agenda also includes a Consent Agenda of five Media Bureau items.
Rural Call Completion
The FCC is seeking comment on CenturyLink’s petition for limited waiver of the recordkeeping, retention, and reporting requirements adopted in the FCC’s Rural Call Completion Order. TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see FCC Bulletin dated 11/13/13. See TMI’s Blog “FCC Asked to Rethink Rural Call Completion Rules,” dated 2/20/14. CenturyLink seeks a limited waiver of the call attempt recording, retention, and reporting requirements solely for (1) calls that use Multi-Frequency (MF) signaling and (2) intraLATA toll calls handed directly from the originating provider to the terminating provider. CenturyLink said that both of these limited requests for waiver involve historical technology that is not designed for such reporting but that still serves customers well and a very limited portion of CenturyLink’s traffic. As such, generating the information required by the rules would impose significant, unnecessary expense on the part of CenturyLink and terminating providers in order to overcome those technical limitations. Comments are due August 11, 2014; reply comments are due August 18, 2014.
ICS Rate Reform
The FCC released the full transcript of its Workshop on Further Reform of Inmate Calling Services held July 9, 2014. See the Regulatory Mix dated 7/8/14 and 6/30/14. The transcript is available here.
