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
Rural Broadband Experiments
The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau announced that it is ready to authorize the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to disburse rural broadband experiment support to Big Bend Telecom, Ltd. (BBT) for its provisionally selected bid projects. Those bids total $178,425 and cover 15 census blocks in rural Texas. To be authorized to receive this support, BBT must submit at least one acceptable irrevocable stand-by letter of credit and Bankruptcy Code opinion letter from its legal counsel by August 4, 2016.
Lifeline Investigation Settlement
The FCC entered into a settlement agreement with Blue Jay Wireless to resolve an investigation into whether the company improperly enrolled several thousand Hawaiian customers as eligible for enhanced Tribal support reimbursements from the FCC’s Lifeline program. An investigation by the Enforcement Bureau’s Universal Service Fund Strike Force found that Blue Jay had incorrectly requested and received Lifeline Tribal reimbursements for enrolled consumers who did not reside on Hawaiian Home Lands. In 2014, Hawaii PUC staff informed Blue Jay that the number of Tribal consumers it was claiming appeared to exceed the number of households on Hawaiian Home Lands. Despite this information, Blue Jay continued to seek reimbursement for those improper consumers. while it sought to gather more accurate information about its Hawaiian Home Lands Tribal consumers. Under the settlement, Blue Jay will reimburse the Universal Service Fund approximately $2 million and develop and implement a compliance plan to ensure appropriate procedures are incorporated into its business practices to prevent the enrollment of ineligible Tribal consumers, including the use of an approved software tool to identify and verify the accuracy of consumers’ self-certification of their residency on Tribal Lands.
FirstNet
The First Responder Network Authority will host a Forum in Phoenix, Arizona August 30th and 31st. The subject of the Forum will be Connecting Public Safety Operations Along the Southwest Border. The discussion will focus on operations along the southwest border of the United States. FirstNet said it has plans for future forums in other regions of the U.S. Click the link above for more details and a link to the Forum flyer.
