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 Briefing.

TELECOM

US Congress

The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), approved two bipartisan proposals aimed at improving access to wired and wireless broadband for all Americans. This includes a legislative package to improve broadband infrastructure deployment and H.R. 1641, the Federal Spectrum Incentive Act. See the Regulatory Mix dated 12/2/15.

Mobile Subscribership

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released the preliminary results of the January-June 2015 National Health Interview Survey. The results indicate that nearly one-half of American homes (47.4%) had only wireless telephones during the first half of 2015—an increase of 3.4 percentage points since the first half of 2014. More than two-thirds of all adults aged 25-34 and of adults renting their homes were living in wireless-only households. Other interesting statistics include:

• More than two-thirds of adults aged 25–29 (71.3%) and aged 30-34 (67.8%) lived in households with only wireless telephones. These rates are greater than the rate for those 18–24 (59.4%). The percentage of adults living with only wireless telephones decreased as age increased beyond 35 years: 56.6% for those 35–44; 40.8% for those 45–64; and 19.3% for those 65 and over.
• Adults living in the Midwest (51.9%), South (50.2%), and West (47.1%) were more likely than those living in the Northeast (31.6%) to be living in households with only wireless telephones. Adults living in metropolitan areas (47.8%) were more likely than those living in nonmetropolitan areas (42.3%) to be living in wireless-only households.
• Adults with college degrees (19.5%) were more likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were high school graduates (14.6%) or adults with less education (12.1%).
• Adults living in rented homes (10.5%) were less likely to be living in wireless-mostly households than were adults living in homes owned by a household member (19.0%).
• The percentages of adults and children living without any telephone service have increased slightly but significantly over the past 3 years. Approximately 3.4% of households had no telephone service (neither wireless nor landline). About 7.5 million adults (3.1%) and 2.3 million children (3.2%) lived in these households.

Canada/NPA

New area code 825 has been assigned by the North American Numbering Plan Administrator and will be implemented on the Relief Date of April 9, 2016, as a distributed overlay over the geographic area of the province of Alberta currently served by the 403, 587, and 780 area codes. Click here for details.