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 Briefing.
TELECOM
FCC
VoIP Numbering
The FCC has granted Vonage Holdings Corp.’s application, as an interconnected VoIP provider, for authorization to obtain numbering resources from the Numbering Administrator. This is the first numbering authorization granted by the FCC for an interconnected VoIP provider under its newly effective rules allowing VoIP providers to obtain direct access to numbering resources. See the Regulatory Mix dated 2/4/16.
FCC Form 477 Data on Voice Service
The FCC has released a report summarizing the information collected through Form 477 about telephone services as of December 31, 2014, and also as of June 2014. The report demonstrates continued growth in subscribership to interconnected VoIP and mobile voice services and the continued decline in subscribership to traditional wired telephone services. Among other things, the report shows that:
- In December 2014, there were 73 million end-user switched access lines in service, 54 million interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 323 million mobile subscriptions in the United States, or 449 million retail voice telephone service connections in total.
- From December 2011 to December 2014, interconnected VoIP subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 14%, mobile voice subscriptions increased at a compound annual growth rate of 3%, and retail switched access lines declined at 12% per year.
- Of the 127 million wireline retail voice telephone service connections (including both switched access lines and interconnected VoIP subscriptions) in December 2014, 70 million (or 55%) were residential connections and 57 million (or 45%) were business connections.
- Cross-classified by technology and the retailer’s regulatory status, the 70 million wireline residential connections in December 2014 were: 43% ILEC switched access lines, 41% non-ILEC interconnected VoIP subscriptions, 14% ILEC interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 3% non-ILEC switched access lines. Similarly, the 57 million wireline business connections were: 50% ILEC switched access lines, 25% non-ILEC interconnected VoIP subscriptions, 3% ILEC interconnected VoIP subscriptions, and 22% non-ILEC switched access lines.
FCC Form 477 Data on Internet Access Service
The FCC released a report summarizing information about Internet access connections in the United States as of December 31, 2014, and also as of June 30, 2014, as collected by FCC Form 477. For purposes of the report, Internet access connections are those in service, over 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction. Among other things, the report shows that:
- The total number of Internet connections increased by 9% between December 2013 and December 2014 to 321 million.
- Most of the growth in total Internet connections is attributable to increased mobile Internet access subscribership. The number of mobile Internet connections increased 13% year-over-year to 224 million in December 2014, while the number of fixed connections grew to 98 million – up 2% from December 2013.
- The percentage of fixed connections with a downstream speed of at least 25 Mbps has grown from 8% (or 7 million connections) in December 2011 to 45% (or 44 million connections) in December 2014. Over the same period, the percentage of fixed connections with slower downstream speeds of less than 3 Mbps has decreased from 27% (or 24 million connections) in December 2010 to 8% (or 8 million connections) in December 2014.
- In December 2014, about 21% of mobile connections (or 46 million connections) were slower than 1 Mbps upstream, 57% (or 126 million connections) were at least 1 Mbps upstream but slower than 3 Mbps, and 23% (or 51 million connections) were at least 3 Mbps upstream.
