Kelley Drye will host a free webinar, on March 9, 2010 at 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EST. The webinar will discuss the most recent USF developments that could threaten your company’s bottom line today. Our speakers will offer expert analysis and practical take-aways based on front line experience in ongoing audits and appeals, and years of providing compliance and enforcement advice in this area.
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UPDATED -- FORM 499 RELEASED
The FCC's Wireline Competition Bureau announced the new FCC Form 499A today. This form, which must be used to file the April 1 annual revenue report, includes several potentially significant changes. Audio bridging providers (conference service providers) and those close to the de minimis threshold are most affected.
As of COB yesterday, only the announcement was available. The 499A itself will be released today and I will update this post when it is available. UPDATE: The new Form 499A is available here.
Follow the jump for a discussion of the changes.
Continue Reading...What: Annual CPNI Certification pursuant to Section 64.2009. Carriers must certify that their procedures comply with the FCC's privacy rules, disclose complaints about CPNI breaches and identify actions taken against pretexters. The certification must be signed by an officer of the company and based on the officer's personal knowledge. In addition, the certification must be accompanied by a statement describing the company's CPNI policies and explaining how those policies comply with the rules.
Where: Certifications are to be filed in FCC docket no. 06-36.
When: Due by March 1, 2010
Who must file: All telecommunications carriers and all interconnected VoIP providers. Filing obligation applies to carriers who are de minimis for USF purposes. Filing obligation does not apply to private carriers.
WARNING: Last year, the FCC proposed base fines of $20,000 to companies that failed to file certifications or that filed certifications that did not comply with the rules.
The House Committee on Energy and Commerce has sent a February 16, 2010 letter to 24 rural local exchange carriers seeking information about their access charge services. The 24 carriers receiving the letters were chosen on the basis of responses to earlier letters sent to long distance carriers who complained of "traffic pumping" by some rural LECs. The Congressional letter expresses concern that "excessive rates for terminating access" will harm rural consumers because interexchange carriers will refuse to send traffic to those locations. It requests written responses to twelve questions by March 8, including information about the sharing of access revenues with other entities. In such cases, the letter seeks the identity of each such sharing party, the total percentage of revenues shared and a sample contract for sharing revenue. The letter also inquires about the amount of universal service support which the rural LECs receive. The LECs are asked to inform Congressional staff by March 1 if they intend to refuse to provide the information voluntarily, presumably so that it can be subpeonaed. The letter is signed by Committee Chairman Henry Waxman (D. CA) and subcommittee chairs Rick Boucher (D. VA) (Communications, Technology and the Internet) and Bart Stupak (D. Mich) (Oversight and Investigations).
The U.S. District Court in D.C. ruled today that IP-originated calls are "information services" that are subject to the local reciprocal compensation scheme - and not access charges - for intercarrier compensation. The ruling came in Paetec Communications v. CommPartners, LLC, U.S. Dist Ct for DC, Civ. Action No. 08-0397. Paetec filed the case against CommPartners seeking to collect access charges for all calls, both TDM and VoIP originated. CommPartners conceded that it owed access fees on the TDM calls, but argued that VoIP calls are information services exempt from access under the FCC's longstanding access charge exemption for such calls. The Court agreed. In reaching its opinion...
Continue Reading...Beehive Telephone has Petitioned the FCC for a declaratory ruling in an effort to salvage a lawsuit that Beehive brought against Sprint in federal court for collection of access charges. According to the Petition, Sprint refused to pay Beehive's access invoices because Sprint believes they are the product of unlawful "traffic stimulation" by Beehive and a conference bridge provider. In March 2008, Beehive filed an informal complaint with the FCC seeking a finding that Sprint's refusal to pay is an unlawful practice under Section 201 of the Communications Act. Sprint opposed the informal complaint on various grounds. In May of 2008, Beehive filed a collections lawsuit against Sprint in federal court in Utah. Thereafter, the FCC stated that it would take no further action on the informal complaint. However, the court later dismissed Beehive's lawsuit for lack of jurisdiction, finding that the informal complaint with the FCC was an "election of remedies" that prevents Beehive from pursing the collections matter in court. (Section 207 of the Communications Act allows complaints against carriers to be brought at the FCC or in Court, but not in both places.) Beehive's February 2010 Petition asks the FCC to clarify that its initial Section 201 informal complaint raised a different issue from the collection action and thus did not foreclose the collection lawsuit under the "election of remedies". In effect, Beehive is taking the unusual step of asking the FCC to rule that Beehive is barred from bringing its collection action at the FCC. If successful in having itself barred by the FCC, Beehive hopes to use the ruling to persuade the Court to reinstate its collection lawsuit. Comments are due at the FCC on March 1, Replies March 11.
The DC area has been hit with back to back snowstorms since February 5, causing the FCC to close for four straight days. This is the first time I can remember the FCC being closed for such a long time period.
We are starting to see the impact of the closure. The FCC's open meeting originally scheduled for today has been postponed a week, to February 18th. The FCC's electronic docketing systems have not been updated since mid-day on Friday, February 5th, putting significant strains on many proceedings before the Commission. I have one proceeding, for example, where comments were due on the 5th. Maybe half of all comments appear in the docket so far, and the February 22 reply date is rapidly approaching. I hope the FCC will grant an extension of the reply date when it finally opens again.
Kudos to all those snowplow operators, emergency services personnel and utility technicians who have toiled so long and hard in what turned out to be a blizzard we will remember forever.
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