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.
US Congress
Both Houses of Congress have now passed E-LABEL legislation that would allow phones and other electronic devices to display required FCC equipment authorization information on their screens instead of on a physical label. (E-LABEL stands for Enhance Labeling, Accessing, and Branding of Electronic Licenses.) The legislation would require the FCC to adopt implementing rules within nine months. S 2583 passed the Senate on September 18, 2014; HR 5161 passed the House of Representatives on September 11, 2014. The two bills are identical.
FCC
The FCC announced it would hold a webinar on September 29, 2014, to assist parties interested in bidding for Connect America Fund money for rural broadband experiments. As part of this process, applicants will have to complete FCC Form 5610, which requires them to provide certain identifying information and attach proposed project bids. The FCC said it would release additional information in the coming days regarding the application form and detailing how interested parties can attend the webinar.
District of Columbia
The PSC will hold a technical conference on October 14, 2014, as part of its investigation of Verizon’s continued use of its copper infrastructure for the provision of telecommunications services in the District and whether it plans to transition customers from services provided over copper facilities to telecommunications services provided over fiber facilities. At the conference Verizon will make a technical presentation regarding the operation and attributes, including the network architectures, elements, and call flows, of its voice services provided by copper lines connected to TDM-based circuit equipment, its voice services provided by fiber lines connected to TDM-based circuit equipment, and its voice services provided by fiber lines over IP softswitch equipment. Verizon will file a report summarizing the technical conference and copies of the materials presented during the technical conference within ten days of the technical conference.
Indiana
The Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission established a new procedural schedule in its proceeding considering the implementation of mandatory 10-digit dialing in connection with the all-services distributed overlay for the 812 Numbering Plan Area. (In August 2014, the Commission directed that the overlay remain in the permissive dialing phase while it addressed concerns regarding the ability of certain businesses that service the medical and law enforcement industry to switch to mandatory 10-digit dialing. Mandatory dialing had been scheduled to start September 6, 2014. TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see Bulletin dated 8/7/14.)
In August 2014 the Indiana Telecommunications Association (ITA) told the Commission its members were ready to implement mandatory 10-digit dialing and recommended the Commission establish a new deadline. The Commission directed ITA to submit testimony in support of its request by September 17, 2014. That testimony recommends a new deadline for mandatory 10-digit dialing of February 7, 2015. Responses to the testimony may be filed by September 24, 2014. An Evidentiary Hearing will be held October 2, 2014.
