The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of telecom related 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 Briefing.

FCC

          Lifeline

Commissioner Ajit Pai has sent a follow-up letter to USAC seeking information on the way it administers the independent economic household (IEH) override in the National Lifeline Accountability Database (NLAD) when there are multiple lifeline subscribers at the same address but each with separate households.   According to Commissioner Pai, the data USAC sent in response to his previous request, See the Regulatory Mix dated 4/19/16, reveal that carriers enrolled 4,291,647 subscribers between October 2014 and April 2016 using the IEH override process and “[t]hat's more than 35.3% of all subscribers enrolled in NLAD-participating states  during that period. Indeed, that's more people than live in the State of Oregon. And the price to the taxpayer is steep-just one year of service for these apparent duplicates costs taxpayers $476 million.  It is alarming that over one-third of subscribers-costing taxpayers almost half a billion dollars a year-were registered through an IEH override.”  Accordingly, he requested that USAC provide him with eight different types of information about the IEH override process, including how that process is verified and audited and whether any investigations have been undertaken.  USAC is asked to respond by June 28, 2016.

          E-Rate

The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau announced that there is sufficient funding available to fully meet the Universal Service Company’s (USAC) estimated demand for category one and category two requests for E-rate supported services for funding year 2016.  USAC was directed to fully fund eligible category one and category two requests, using $1.9 billion in E-rate funds unused from previous years, and any additional funds needed under the current cap to fully meet demand for such services.

          Collocation Of Wireless Antennas

The FCC extended the time for filing comment on a proposed Amended Nationwide Programmatic Agreement for the Collocation of Wireless Antennas.  Comments had been due June 13, 2016; they are now due June 27, 2016.  The Agreement addresses the review of deployments of small wireless antennas and associated equipment under Section 106 of the National Historic Preservation Act (NHPA).  See the Regulatory Mix dated 5/16/16.