The FCC’s Wireline Competition Bureau (Bureau) has issued an Order which grants ComSouth Telenet’s (ComSouth) request to receive the same the relief established in the Bureau’s RICA Declaratory Ruling and Order. In that order, the Bureau determined that unlike ILECs, CLECs are not required to recover from end-user customers a portion of their non-traffic-sensitive (NTS) costs of providing interstate or interstate exchange access services, and therefore, only those CLECs that recover these NTS costs from end-user customers are required to allocate and report for USF contribution purposes a portion of their fixed local revenues to the interstate jurisdiction. It also directed USAC to accept newly revised FCC Forms 499-A from RICA members that had originally filed their forms under protest, and instructed USAC to refund any resulting overpayments to them. ComSouth was a party to the petition, but it was not a RICA member which led USAC to determine that it did not qualify for the relief granted in the order. ComSouth then petitioned the Bureau for a limited waiver and request for review of USAC’s decision denying the relief. The Bureau has now determined that “based on the unique circumstances…good cause exists to grant a limited waiver of the conditions of the RICA Declaratory Ruling and Order to allow ComSouth to benefit from the relief granted in that order.” The Bureau has also directed USAC “to review ComSouth’s amended FCC Forms 499-A and supporting documentation and to adjust invoices and issue refunds as appropriate.”
