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
NARUC
At the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) Summer Committee Meetings, NARUC President Lisa Edgar of Florida announced the formation of a new Telecommunications task force. The mission of the Telecommunications Act Modernization (TeAM) Task Force is to ensure that the States’ voice is heard and that NARUC is positioned to respond quickly to any effort to amend the laws governing the nation’s telecommunications sector. The TeAM Task Force is established for two years, from July 15, 2015, through July 15, 2017. During that period, one of the core activities will be focused on providing an updated negotiating framework for any pending federal rewrite of the federal telecommunications law that reflects the House White papers released in 2014 – possibly proposing updates to reflect areas, if any, not covered (or adequately covered) by the 2013 NARUC Federalism white paper, including FCC process reform. Click here for more details and a TeAM task force member list.
California
This PUC approved a resolution that will provide funding in the amount of $202,557 from the California Advanced Service Fund (CASF) for the grant application of Citizens Telecommunications Company for the upgrade of existing middle-mile infrastructure in Petrolia, California (Petrolia Project). These upgrades will enable Internet speeds of up to 25 Mbps download and 1.5 Mbps upload to approximately 138 households. The project area is spread over 12.7 square miles in and adjoining the underserved community of Petrolia. Among other things, this project will provide safety benefits to the Petrolia community including, but not limited to, robust bandwidth in the event of wildfire, winter storms, and earthquakes as well as improved access to e-health services.
Ohio
The PUC issued a press release reminding residential and business customers within the existing 614 NPA to prepare for the introduction of the new 380 NPA. The new 380 NPA will serve the same geographic area currently served by the existing 614 NPA. Some of the counties to be served by the 380 NPA include Delaware, Fairfield, Franklin, Licking, Madison, Pickaway, and Union. The permissive dialing period is from August 1, 2015, through January 30. 2016. Effective January 30, 2016, 10- or 11-digit dialing will be mandatory. TMI Regulatory Bulletin Service subscribers see Bulletin dated 2/13/15. Customers should ensure that all services, automatic dialing equipment, applications, software, or other types of equipment recognize the new 380 area code as a valid area code. All international and domestic carriers should ensure that the new 380 NPA has been activated throughout their networks prior to February 27, 2016. The test number to verify the routing to the new NPA will be in service beginning November 27, 2015 through March 27, 2016. The test number to verify the routing to the 380 NPA is 380-380-1380.
