Bureau Grants in Part Telcos' One-Time Waiver Request of ETC Biennial Audits
The FCC partially granted a USTelecom, CTIA and ITTA request for a one-time waiver of rules requiring a biennial audit of certain USF-eligible telecom carriers. The groups sought the waiver of the "biennial audit requirement for ETCs that are also…
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subject to a forensic audit by the Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC), where those two audits cover the same time period," calendar year 2017, said a Wireline Bureau order Friday in docket 11-42 and others. "Petitioners contend that these audits are duplicative and impose an unnecessary burden on those ETCs that are subject to both audits, while not advancing the public interest." The bureau found "some overlap" but said "the two audit requirements are not wholly duplicative," and granted in part a waiver of the biennial audit requirement for certain Lifeline providers, and otherwise denied it. "We hereby waive the biennial audit procedures related to: Form 497/NLAD analyses (Objective II, 2 and 3); review of eligibility documentation, recertification, and certification forms for completeness and compliance with Lifeline rules (Objective III, 2); and analysis of data reported on the Form 555 (Objective IV, 4-6)," it said.