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.
The Regulatory Mix will be on hiatus from
Thursday, December 22, 2016, through Monday, January 2, 2017.
FCC CAF Funding For Rate-of-Return Companies
The FCC allocated an additional $50 million of annual Alternative Connect America Fund Model-based (A-CAM) support to rate-of-return (RoR) companies to addresses the significant demand for such funding. This will extend broadband service to more than 800,000 people in rural, high-cost areas that currently lack such service. (Earlier this year, RoR companies elected to accept model-based support that exceeded the initial budget by more than $160 million annually.) The FCC also: adopted a methodology to make revised offers to the remaining electing carriers that prioritizes support to those areas of the country that have the lowest deployment of broadband; and sought comment on whether to expand the A-CAM budget to provide additional funding.
Separately, the FCC authorized 35 RoR companies that elected 45 offers of A-CAM support to receive support pursuant to their existing elections. For the remaining 191 companies that elected model-based support, the FCC announced 228 revised offers of support and the associated revised deployment obligations. These carriers have until January 19, 2017 (30 days) to notify the FCC, on a state-by-state basis, whether they elect to receive the revised amount of model-based support.
FCC #Solutions2020 Call To Action Plan
The FCC is seeking comment, by January 11, 2017, on Commissioner Clyburn’s draft #Solutions2020 Call to Action Plan. The plan includes: (1) ensuring affordable communications; (2) empowering communities; (3) 5G and Beyond for All Americans; (4) Enhancing Consumer Protections (5) Broadband as a Driver of Improved Health Services and (6) Promoting a More Diverse Media Landscape. Part of the call for ensuring affordable communications includes comprehensive reform of inmate calling services. Specifically, the plan urges Congress, the FCC, states and localities to work to introduce real competition and establish reasonable rates in ICS and video visitation services, and abolish kickbacks to correctional facilities. Other suggestions include streamlining access to lifeline service, deploying next-generation communications services, eliminating forced arbitration, and improving Point-of-Sale transparency.
Colorado Area Boundaries
Qwest dba CenturyLink and Nunn Telephone filed a joint application to rearrange their exchange area boundaries and designate Nunn as the provider of last resort. The companies seek to rearrange their exchange area boundaries so that a portion of CenturyLink's Ault/Pierce wire center will be moved to Nunn's service territory.
The Regulatory Mix will be on hiatus from
Thursday, December 22, 2016, through Monday, January 2, 2017.
Happy Holidays from all of your friends at TMI!
