The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) has announced it is initiating an urban rate survey to collect information to develop voice and broadband benchmarks that will be used in 2015 to determine whether recipients of high-cost support are offering voice and broadband services in their supported areas at rates that are reasonably comparable to rates for similar services in urban areas. Like the process used for the last rate survey, the Bureau will collect data on voice and broadband rates offered by providers of fixed services in up to 500 urban census tracts. Using the most recent FCC Form 477 filings, the Bureau will randomly select a number of service providers to complete the survey, and notify them via an email to each selected provider’s FCC Form 477 contact person on or around October 28, 2014. Selected providers must complete the survey online by November 26, 2014. Based on the Bureau’s experience with the first rate survey, the following changes will be made to the 2015 survey: all questions regarding non-recurring charges have been removed from both the voice and broadband portions of the survey; and a question about taxes, surcharges, and TRS charges has been removed from the voice portion of the survey. Additional information on the urban rate survey is available online at www.fcc.gov/encyclopedia/urban-rate-survey-data.
