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
The FCC released its annual 2013 International Telecommunications Data Report. The Report shows, among other things, that:
- The average per-minute rate for international calling charged by facilities-based U.S. common carriers rose 8% from $0.049 per minute in 2012 to $0.053 per minute in 2013. From 2000 to 2013, the per-minute rate decreased 89%, from $0.47 per minute to $0.053 per minute.
- International “U.S.-billed” traffic – primarily traffic originating in the United States – decreased 5.5%, from 77.9 billion minutes in 2012 to 73.6 billion minutes in 2013.
- Calls to five countries account for 64% of outgoing international U.S.-billed minutes. The five most heavily used routes in 2013 were U.S.-Mexico (22.6%), U.S.-India (22.2%), U.S.-Canada (13.5%), U.S.-Colombia (3.0%), and U.S.-United Kingdom (2.7%)
- U.S.-billed revenues for international telephone, private line, and other miscellaneous services (e.g., frame relay/ATM, switched Ethernet, TDM/TDMA, and virtual private network) increased collectively 2.4%, from $4.2 billion in 2012 to $4.3 billion in 2013.
- Pure resale traffic, not included above, decreased 10%, from 90.4 billion minutes in 2012 to 81.4 billion minutes in 2013. Billed revenues for resale services decreased 9.6%, from $5.2 billion in 2012 to $4.7 billion in 2013. The total number of carriers reporting resale services increased 4.6%, from 1,351 in 2012 to 1,413 in 2013.
The Report does not included data for Interconnected VoIP services since such providers were not required to submit data for 2013.
Nevada
The PUC announced it will hold two general consumer sessions on September 22, 2015 and two on September 24, 2015. The September 22 sessions will be held in the PUC’s Hearing Room A, located at 9075 West Diablo Drive, Suite 250, Las Vegas, Nevada 89148, at 1:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m. The September 24 sessions will be held at the Washoe County Commission Chambers, 1001 E. 9th Street, Building A, Reno, Nevada 89512, at 1:00 p.m and 6:00 p.m. The hearings are being held because Nevada statutes require the PUC to hold at least one general consumer session in the counties with the first and second largest population within the state of Nevada each calendar year. Interested persons may appear and be heard on any topic concerning a public utility regulated by the PUC.
