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
FCC
The FCC announced that FairPoint Communications, Inc. (FairPoint) accepted Connect America Phase II model-based support in the amount of $37,430,669 to expand and support broadband for over 200,000 of its rural customers. The Connect America Fund support will enable FairPoint to deliver broadband at speeds of at least 10 Mbps for downloads and 1 Mbps uploads to over 105,000 homes and businesses in 14 states. The Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) was directed to disburse support in the amounts identified below for each state where FairPoint has accepted support. Consistent with FairPoint’s election, USAC was also directed to disburse from the broadband reserve account a lump sum payment associated with January through July 2015 for those states where model-based support is greater than Phase I support.
Energy
Pennsylvania
The Public Utility Commission finalized recommendations that will provide consumers with more information from their natural gas suppliers (NGSs) on their utility bill.
The Commission voted 5-0 to approve changes proposed by the PUC’s Office of Competitive Market Oversight (OCMO), which will provide for a more supplier-oriented, consolidated natural gas bill. The adopted changes provide for the inclusion of the NGS’s logo on the bill; the expansion of bill messaging space allotted to NGSs; and the inclusion of a Shopping Information Box, which will include a customer’s account or supplier ID number, a customer’s rate schedule and, if already shopping, a reminder to customers to know their contract expiration date. The Commission’s goal is to increase customer awareness when participating in the competitive retail natural gas market and to provide more information from NGSs on utility-consolidated bills. Read more . . .
