The Regulatory Mix, TMI’s daily blog of 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 Regulatory Bulletin.
TELECOM
Montana
The Montana PSC is seeking comment on a CenturyLink’s petition for waiver of the requirement to file tariffs or price lists for regulated telecommunications services. CenturyLink is seeking to achieve regulatory parity with its CLEC competitors that do not file tariffs. (The PSC granted CLECs a waiver of the tariff filing requirement in 2000.) CenturyLink claims the waiver would give it pricing flexibility, but “still retain other aspects of regulation”, and that the relief is justified because it now serves “less than one third of the households in its serving area” and experiences intense competition. Entities interested in becoming parties to the docket must file a Petition to Intervene by December 11, 2013.
FCC
The FCC is asking if it should waive the address requirement in its Lifeline rules for the benefit of qualifying, low-income consumers participating in state-administered Address Confidentiality Programs (ACPs). ACPs allow victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse to keep their residential address confidential from public records. They provide victims with alternate, shared mailing addresses for use on public documents and often include a P.O. Box along with an individualized code tied to each participating consumer. See our upcoming Blog for more details.
