The FCC could cite existing wireless universal service contributi...
The FCC could cite existing wireless universal service contribution mechanisms to justify requiring interconnected VoIP providers to contribute to state universal service funds based on intrastate revenue (CD Aug 26 p8), said the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.…
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NARUC Telecom Committee Chairman Ray Baum and General Counsel Brad Ramsay met separately on Tuesday with aides to Commissioner Robert McDowell and FCC General Counsel Austin Schlick, an ex parte said. Commercial mobile radio services are “if anything, more portable” than nomadic VoIP services, and CMRS companies contribute to both federal and state USF, noted NARUC. “This suggests the FCC could cite to existing wireline and CMRS contribution mechanisms to clarify/interpret the existing regulations and specify State mechanisms that, are based on billing addresses, like wireline carriers, that assess no more than the 35.1 percent complement to the federal safe harbor amount -- necessarily do not double recover costs and also therefore necessarily ‘do not burden the federal program.'”