CTIA asked the FCC to change a requirement in a 2002 order revisi...
CTIA asked the FCC to change a requirement in a 2002 order revising Universal Service Fund contribution rules that force carriers that decide to pay USF fees based on the 28.5% wireless safe harbor to nonetheless calculate some of…
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revenue streams and submit the numbers to the FCC. The safe harbor is the assumed amount of wireless calls that are interstate and thus subject to USF fees. A carrier source said Thurs. that when the FCC modified its rules most didn’t notice at first that in addition to raising the safe harbor from 15% to 28.5% the FCC also imposed a reporting requirement for some classes of revenue, specifically for minutes beyond the customer’s monthly basket and for international calls. The source said taking this step negates some of the safe harbor’s benefit. “It’s not that easy for wireless carriers to do this for any category of revenues,” the source said. “For those who avail themselves of the safe harbor it doesn’t make sense to do it for some [revenue sources] but not for everything.” About half of the carriers use safe harbor calculation in assessing USF contributions. The larger carriers in particular find the calculations difficult. CTIA said the reporting requirements “improperly limit the scope of the wireless safe harbor and will result in recovery practices that are unreasonably expensive, administratively burdensome for carriers, extremely confusing for consumers, and inconsistent with direction provided in Commission orders.” - HB