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.

US Congress Hearing on Cyber Attacks

The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology and the House Subcommittee on Commerce, Manufacturing, and Trade have scheduled a joint hearing entitled, “Understanding the Role of Connected Devices in Recent Cyber Attacks” for Wednesday, November 16, at 10 a.m.  The hearing will examine how Internet of Things (IOT) connected devices are used in cyber attacks to deny access to popular websites or otherwise disrupt online services.  The Majority Memorandum, witness list, and witness testimony will be available here as they are posted.

FCC Open Meeting for November

The FCC announced the agenda for its November 17, 2016, Open Meeting.  The items are as follows:

• Mobility Fund: A Report and Order that would adopt rules for the second phase of the Mobility Fund, which would provide ongoing universal service support dedicated to expanding the availability of mobile broadband networks. 
• Roaming Obligations of Commercial Mobile Service Providers and Regulatory Classification of Voice over LTE Service:  A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would seek comment on proposals to implement a unified roaming standard and to classify Voice over LTE.
• Business Data Services: A Report and Order and Second Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that would allow for light-touch regulation of packet-based Business Data Services and retain and update price cap regulation for lower-bandwidth TDM-based Business Data Services to ensure that lack of competition does not unfairly harm commercial customers or the consumers who rely upon these services. 
• Video Description: Implementation of the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010: A Report and Order which addresses the amount of video described programming required to be made available to consumers. The FCC will consider and enforcement and FOIA matter as part of its consent agenda.

The FCC will consider an enforcement and FOIA matter as part of its consent agenda.

USAC Audits

The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) announced that it had established a new web page the shows the most common audit findings and how to avoid them.  The page is intended to assist contributors filing Form 499 to ensure they are accurate, properly documented, and incompliance with FCC rules.  Findings addressed include failure to report itemized state and federal USF surcharges as revenue, improper USF assessment on end user bills, error in reporting reseller revenue, and insufficient reseller information and certificates.