The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) Wireline Competition Bureau (WCB) has issued a Public Notice seeking comment on proposed revisions for 2023 to its annual and quarterly Forms 499, which are used for calculating contributions to the federal Universal Service Fund. This year, the revisions other than ministerial changes (e.g., dates, typos, etc.) all concern the annual filing—Form 499-A:
- each affiliate and subsidiary entity should identify their ultimate controlling parent or entity, or provide a common identifier for all affiliated filers;
- filers are no longer required to provide a fax number
- incumbent LECs without a subscriber line charge should identify the interstate portion of fixed local exchange service revenues;
- amounts received from the federal USF support mechanism should be attributed as either interstate or international revenues, as appropriate; and
- reseller safe harbor procedures require an active Filer 499 ID to meet the “reasonable expectation” standard.
Comments are due August 15, 2022.
