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
FCC
Special Access Data Collection
The FCC revised the due dates for its special access data collection. For entities required to file a streamlined certification only, the due date remains December 15, 2014. For large businesses with more than 1,500 employees as measured at the parent company level, the due date is January 29, 2015. For other entities required to provide data and information in response to the data collection (i.e., entities with 1,500 or fewer employees) the due date is February 27, 2015.
Inmate Calling Services
The FCC announced the date for filing comments in its proceeding seeking to adopt further reforms for inmate calling services (ICS) rates. Comments in response to the Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking are due January 5, 2015; reply comments are due January 20, 2015.
911 Reliability Certifications
The FCC announced that the Office of Management and Budget has now approved all of its 911 reliability rules. Covered providers must file their Initial Certification of substantial progress toward meeting the requirements of the annual reliability certification on October 15, 2015. Annual certifications will be due October 15 of each succeeding year. The FCC also announced that the rules requiring covered providers to notify PSAPs of outages affecting a 911 special facility became effective November 4, 2014.
USAC Appeals
The FCC issued a reminder about changes to its rules governing the review of Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) decisions. Under the new rules, providers seeking review of a USAC decision MUST first seek review from USAC. After USAC issues a decision on the initial request for review, the provider may then seek review by the FCC. Requests for FCC review must be filed within 60 days from the date USAC issues a decision.
