The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) has released an Order denying Sprint Spectrum, L.P.’s (Sprint) request to reverse the Universal Service Administrative Company’s (USAC) audit decision with respect to the jurisdictional allocation of unknown minutes associated with Sprint’s mobile traffic but remanded an issue back to USAC. USAC’s audit decision made two conclusions that Sprint had failed to produce sufficient evidence to support: (1) its methodologies used to apportion its prepaid and postpaid mobile services to certain jurisdictions; and (2) its allocation of information service revenues associated with one of its bundled service offering. The effect of USAC’s determination increased Sprint’s universal service obligation.
In response to both of USAC’s determinations, Sprint argued, in its Request for Review, that it had relied in good faith on both the FCC’s and USAC’s silence regarding its traffic study methodology and claimed that there was sufficient evidence that its allocation approach was reasonable. The Commission has denied Sprint’s appeal of the first conclusion but remanded the second conclusion to USAC for further consideration in light of the evidence presented by Sprint.
