Today: FTC National Consumer Protection Week, Connecticut Small Cell, Maryland Copper Retirement, South Carolina Directory Workshop

FTC National Consumer Protection Week

The FTC announced that it and more than 100 federal, state, and local agencies, consumer groups, and national advocacy organizations, will participate in the 19th Annual National Consumer Protection Week (NCPW), held March 5-11, 2017.  NCPW is a nationally coordinated campaign to inform Americans of their consumer rights while providing them access to free consumer-related resources.

Connecticut Small Cell

The Public Utility Regulatory Authority (PURA) opened a proceeding to formalize the processes and procedures that small antenna applicants or other similar technologies would follow when applying to the PURA for permission to construct facilities in the public rights-of-way.  Such processes and procedures would include the carrier’s formal notification to the municipality to which construction in the public rights-of-way would occur and notification to abutting proprietors of the property where construction of the facility would be occurring.  The PURA also will examine methods to simplify and streamline the application filing process and the manner in which it investigates and adjudicates carrier requests for construction of these facilities.

Maryland Copper Retirement

The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel (OPC), the Staff of the Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC) and Verizon reached an agreement on February 1, 2017 on Verizon’s notices regarding its current copper telephone service retirement/migration plans in Maryland.  Click here to read OPC Alert:  “Verizon copper-to-fiber phone service program resumes in February.” 

South Carolina Directory Workshop

The PSC will hold a workshop on May 24, 2017, to discuss the means by which the segment of the population that does not have a computer, or ready access to a computer, or that want a paper directory, can best be served going forward as directories become digitized.  Interested persons may file statements on or before April 26, 2017; responsive statements may be filed by May 11, 2017.  The PSC decided to hold a workshop to further examine directory publishing and distribution requirements as part of its order granting CenturyLink and Frontier’s petition for waiver of the directory requirement rules.  TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 2/23/17.

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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.