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
Schedule S Filing
The FCC’s International Bureau announced that the FCC’s new electronic filing system for the creation of Schedule S will be available for use by the public starting at noon on 7/25/16. Schedule S is used for documenting the technical characteristics of proposed satellite operations and is an annex to FCC Form 312, a key requirement in the licensing process for satellite services. The new web-based system and the associated instructions can be found via the International Bureau Filing System (IBFS) website at http://licensing.fcc.gov/myibfs.
NORS
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau announced the roll-out schedule for the new version of the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) platform. The new version of NORS has two interfaces: (1) a web-based interface and (2) an API/XML interface for companies that want to automatically file outage reports. Access to the old version of NORS will be terminated on 8/15/16. After 8/15/16, all NORS filings must be submitted using the new NORS production system.
The FCC will transfer existing User IDs from the old NORS system to the new NORS production system by July 25th at 8:00 AM EDT, but will not transfer any of the User IDs from the new NORS testing system to the production system. The web-based interface will be opened on 7/25/16. Companies that are not using the API/XML interface must use the web-based interface beginning on July 25th at 3:00 PM EDT. After this time, the old version of the NORS system will no longer be available for these filers. The API/XML interface will be available on 8/15/16, at which time companies that plan to use the API/XML interface will be expected to file outage reports using the new version of NORS. The new NORS production system can be accessed directly at https://fcc.appiancloud.com/suite/. FCC rules require providers of wireless, wireline, cable, satellite communications, and interconnected VoIP services to report significant disruptions or outages to their communications systems.
Nebraska
The PSC is seeking briefs on certain legal issues surrounding its proposal to move to a connections-based contribution methodology to support the Nebraska Universal Service Fund (NUSF) programs. The purpose of the briefs is to avert minimize after-the-fact challenges to the lawfulness of any PSC action revising the contribution methodology. Briefs in response to three specific questions are due 8/3/16. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 7/20/16.
Watch for more information about our Ocotober 18 & 19 Telecom Regulatory Seminar & Workshop on our website.
