Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance members have been...
Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance members have been “over-assessed regulatory fees for more than a decade,” the association told the FCC Thursday, expressing support for the commission’s determination that its fee methodology is outdated (http://bit.ly/139ijRc). Since virtually all commenters support…
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efforts to update the fee assessment methodology, the commission should move forward with reallocation and apply any rate changes this fiscal year, ITTA said. Any cap on this year’s regulatory fee changes should be no less than 14 percent, ITTA said, which would still allow “meaningful” change this year. By combining wireless voice services into the same category as wireline and interconnected VoIP services, the commission could ensure that all voice providers are treated similarly, the association said; it is “immaterial” that wireline and wireless providers are regulated by different bureaus. “Wireless carriers have received a windfall as a result of their differential treatment for regulatory fee purposes than in a side-by-side comparison of the regulatory fees paid by the wireline and wireless industries,” ITTA said. “Wireless voice providers pay only about $0.17 per handset in regulatory fees. In contrast, the regulatory fees per subscriber paid by ITTA member companies are as much as six times as high."