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.
US Congress
The House Subcommittee on Communications and Technology, chaired by Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), has scheduled a hearing for June 14, 2016, entitled, “FCC Overreach: Examining the Proposed Privacy Rules.” The hearing comes on the heels of a recent committee letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler regarding the agency’s proposed privacy and data breach notification requirements for broadband Internet service providers (ISPs). See the Regulatory Mix dated 6/2/16. Witnesses will be announced and are by invitation only. Further details regarding the hearing webcast will be available here.
FCC
The FCC has set a pleading cycle in connection with Global Tel*Link Corporation’s (GTL) request for a temporary waiver of the two of the FCC’s new inmate calling service (ICS) rules that are scheduled to take effect June 20, 2016, in jails. See the Regulatory Mix dated 6/6/16. Comments are due June 17, 2016; reply comments are due June 24, 2016. If the waiver is granted, GTL will have until September 19, 2016, to comply with the rules prohibiting per-call and per-connection charges and flat-rate calling.
Utah
The PSC announced it will hold a technical conference on June 21, 2016, to discuss the following issues: (1) the Utah Universal Service Fund (UUSF) ongoing revenue requirements; (2) Regulatory options to ensure that all telecommunications providers subject to the UUSF surcharge are collecting and remitting the required revenues; (3) Options to ensure ongoing funding, including the possibility of implementing a per-line/per-connection surcharge. The Utah Division of Public Utilities was directed to prepare to present the data available to the agency regarding the trend of declining UUSF revenues. Other parties in attendance will also be given a reasonable opportunity to make presentations as they see fit, but should note that the technical conference will be conducted as an open, public meeting.
