The Federal Communications Commission (FCC or Commission) has adopted an Order waiving certain sections of its rules to allow rate-of-return carriers to report their actual rates for consumer broadband-only lines (CBOL) for the first three months of 2019 on their FCC Form 509, due on December 31, 2020. Under the rules, rate-of-return carriers are required to report their CBOL revenues based on the maximum permissible consumer broadband-only rate. The Commission has concluded that requiring reporting of the higher rates would create a significant overstatement of revenues and therefore heavily disadvantage many carriers by causing a reduction in the amount of universal service support they receive.
