The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau has extended the deadline to review and correct study area boundary data to March 17, 2014. Last month, the Bureau published an online study area boundary map and requested that parties further review the map’s boundary data and submit corrections by January 13, 2014. The map includes data that had been submitted by incumbent local exchange carriers (ILECs) and certain state public utility commissions in prior data collections. Soon after the release of the map, several industry associations filed a Joint Petition seeking a stay or six-month extension of the January 2014 deadline. Though the Bureau denied the Joint Petition, the Bureau still extended the filing deadline by two months to better enable parties to complete their consultations and revisions, which the Bureau believes will result in more accurate and meaningful data.
