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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

 

US Congress

 

The Senate Subcommittee on Communications Technology, Innovation, and the Internet announced it will hold a hearing on future funding for rural communications on Thursday, February 4th at 10:30 a.m. The hearing will examine the FCC’s Universal Service Mobility Fund and Connect America Fund, with particular emphasis on which entities and technologies should be eligible to receive support. The witness list includes representatives from the Competitive Carriers Association (CCA), Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA), ViaSat, and Seward and Son Planting Company.  Witness testimony, opening statements, and a live video of the hearing will be available on www.commerce.senate.gov.

FCC

         February Open Meeting

The FCC announced the tentative agenda for its next Open Meeting, scheduled for February 18, 2016. The following items are on the tentative agenda:

  • Promoting Diverse and Independent Programming: A Notice of Inquiry seeking comment on the current state of programming diversity and the principal obstacles that independent programmers face in obtaining carriage on video distribution platforms.
  • Expanding Consumer Choice: A Notice of Proposed Rulemaking that seeks comment on a framework for providing innovators, device manufacturers, and app developers the information they need to develop new technologies to access video content. See the Regulatory Mix dated 1/28/16 for details on the Chairman’s proposal.

      

         ICS Rulemaking

The FCC agreed to extend the time for filing reply comments in response to its Third Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on additional changes to its ICS rules. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 1/18/15. Reply comments are now due February 8, 2016. They had been due February 1, 2016.

 

          ILEC Switched Access

The FCC has asked parties to refresh the record on a 2012 Petition asking it to declare that ILECs are no longer presumptively dominant when providing interstate mass market and enterprise switched access services. Among other things, the FCC is seeking comment on recent marketplace or regulatory developments that may bear on its evaluation of the Petition, as well as the practical impact and scope of the finding sought by the Petition. For instance, if the FCC were to grant the Petition, what services should be deemed to be “interstate mass market and enterprise switched access services?” Comments on the Petition are due February 22, 2016; reply comments are due March 7, 2016. TMI Briefing Service subscribers see Briefing dated 1/26/16.

 

ENERGY

California

The PUC approved by a 3:2 vote adoption of a successor program to the current Net Energy Metering (NEM) program. The successor program continues the existing NEM structure while making some adjustments to align the costs recovered from NEM successor customers more closely with those from non-NEM customers. Among other things, the new program includes a one-time interconnections fee, non-bypassable charges that all utility customers pay, and Time of Use (TOU) rates.

 

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