Today: US House FCC oversight, FCC NORS testing, Virginia Level3/CenturyLink merger, Washington outage rule
US House FCC Oversight
The House Communications and Technology Subcommittee announced it will hold a hearing on Wednesday, March 8, 2017, examining the FCC’s reauthorization, budget, spectrum auctions, and proceedings. All three FCC Commissioners are set to testify. Subcommittee Chairman Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said she was looking forward to having the commissioners testify and that it would provide members “the opportunity to learn more about the final stages of the broadcast incentive auction, Chairman Pai’s agenda, and FCC reauthorization.”
FCC NORS Testing
The FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau (Bureau) announced that the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS) Version 3.0 will be open for testing during the four-week period, from February 2 to March 2, 2017. (FCC rules require that providers of voice and paging communications, e.g., wireless, wireline, cable, satellite communications, and interconnected VoIP providers, report significant disruptions or outages to their communications systems.) NORS Version 3.0 improvements will enhance the overall security and reliability of NORS and allow future evolutions to better support new communications technologies and analytic methods. The new version of NORS has four interfaces: (1) a web-based interface, (2) a Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP) Application Programming Interface (API), (3) a Representational State Transfer (REST) API and (4) an Extensible Markup Language (XML) interface. During the testing phase, companies will continue to file their official NORS reports in the NORS 2.0 system. User IDs were created on the test system for all current users of NORS and emails were sent to each user informing them of how to get a new password and log onto the new NORS test system. Upon successful completion of testing, the FCC will migrate all filings to the new NORS 3.0 production system at the beginning of March.
Virginia Level 3 /CenturyLink Merger
On January 17, 2017, Level 3 and CenturyLink filed a joint petition requesting approval for (i) the transfer of control of Level 3's certificated Virginia operating subsidiaries to CenturyLink. The Commission has docketed the matter and instructed the Petitioners to give notice of the Petition to the public. Interested persons may file comments on the Petition no later than March 17, 2017.
Washington Outage Rule
The Utilities Commission initiated a rulemaking to consider a rule to address standards for restoral of telecommunications service following an outage, excluding major outages. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 2/9/17. The proposed rule would also address notice requirements related to planned outages. The Commission seeks comment on the proposal and on a series of specific questions by March 6, 2017.
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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.
