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
911 Reliability Certification
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) issued a Public Notice reminding Covered 911 Service Providers that their Initial Reliability Certifications are due October 15, 2015. Certifications may be submitted through the FCC’s online portal at https://apps2.fcc.gov/rcs911/. (Covered 911 Service Providers are entities that “[p]rovide[] 911, E911, or NG911 capabilities such as call routing, automatic location information (ALI), automatic number identification (ANI), or the functional equivalent of those capabilities, directly to a public safety answering point (PSAP), statewide default answering point, or appropriate local emergency authority,” or that “[o]perate[] one or more central offices that directly serve a PSAP”). Under FCC rules, Covered 911 Service Providers must take reasonable measures to provide reliable service with respect to 911 circuit diversity, central office backup power, and diverse network monitoring, as evidenced by an annual certification of compliance with specified best practices or reasonable alternative measures. The Initial Reliability Certification requires covered providers to demonstrate “substantial progress” toward meeting the requirements of the full Annual Reliability Certification. More detailed instructions on how to complete the certification are available at https://apps2.fcc.gov/rcs911/911RCS_FAQ.html and in a User Manual posted on the main menu of the certification system.
Rural Broadband Support
The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau announced that it is ready to authorize rural broadband experiments support for provisionally selected bids covering 3,332 census blocks in IA, ND, OR, MI, MN, NE, SD, and TX for a total of $21,319,723.71 in support. To be authorized to receive the support listed in the Attachment, the provisionally selected bidders must submit at least one acceptable irrevocable stand-by letter of credit (LOC) and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter from their legal counsel in accordance with the instructions provided by the applicable deadline of September 29, 2015, at 11:59 p.m. EDT. The Bureau also granted several associated Petitions for Extension of Time to obtain ETC certification and affirmatively remove three additional provisionally selected bidders from further consideration that either withdrew or failed to meet certain post-selection requirements.
