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

          NORS

The FCC has revised and clarified the roll-out schedule for the new version of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS).  See the Regulatory Mix dated 7/25/16.  The full system rollout date is extended to August 31, 2016.  At that time, all users will need to file outage reports using the new platform.  After August 31, the old version of the NORS system will no longer be available for filing outage reports.  Until that date and time, users should continue to make all required filings in the old version of the NORS system. 

As of August 1, 2016, users may validate user credentials and company information.  In addition, users can upload test filings in the test environment to confirm interoperability of the new platform.  The new NORS production system will be accessible directly at https://fcc.appiancloud.com/suite/.  The FCC will transfer existing User IDs from the old NORS system to the new NORS production system.  If a user needs a new User ID, they can obtain one at https://www.fcc.gov/eform/submit/Network-Outage-Reporting-System-Registration.  The new NORS test system is currently available, and will remain open for testing purposes until September 15, 2016.

           SADC 

The FCC released another list of additional parties that have signed an acknowledgement of confidentiality (AOC) and that seek to review the data gathered through the FCC’s special access data collection (SADC).  The list includes persons that signed an AOC since the FCC’s last Public Notice.  Companies that submitted confidential or highly confidential information in response to the SADC have until August 5, 2016, to object to the disclosure of their data and information to any of the parties on the list.

Nebraska

The PSC decided not to adopt its proposal to allocate $1 million from the Nebraska Universal Service Fund (NUSF) for limited wireline broadband infrastructure project grants for the 2016 calendar year.  The PSC said it would consider how to allocate support for wireline broadband projects in its NUSF reform proceedings.  Given the expected decline in available 2017 support, the PSC anticipates the monies will be used to mitigate consequent reductions.  Click here for details.

New York

The PSC will hold a second procedural conference on August 11, 2016, in the proceeding to consider Verizon’s retail service quality processes and programs.  The principal purpose of the conference is to discuss scheduling and process proposals and address any other matters appropriately raised at the conference.  Questions about the conference may be directed to ALJ Mullany at (518) 474-7663.  See the Regulatory Mix dated 5/13/16.  TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 4/22/16.