On Oct. 6 and Oct. 19, JSI sent out e-lerts calling clients' attention to the anticipated release of the FCC's order reforming the universal service fund (USF) and intercarrier compensation (ICC) mechanisms.  This past Friday, Oct. 21, the FCC issued a public notice confirming that it plans to vote on the order at its scheduled meeting on Thursday, Oct. 27.  As we stated in our previous e-lerts, until the FCC actually holds its vote, the process will continue to be fluid, and the draft order initially circulated among the commissioners could change significantly.  Even after the vote, the details of the order will not be known until the text is released; given its reported length of more than 400 pages, that could be quite some time.

Through ex parte meetings held by various parties over the past two weeks, some of which JSI attended, we have been able to analyze certain aspects of the draft and evaluate the potential impact on clients.  We will highlight our analysis in a newsletter we intend to distribute just prior to the FCC's vote on Thursday.  In addition, to offer clients our conclusions about the effects of the order after the FCC's vote, we have scheduled a webinar, free of charge for clients, for Friday, Nov. 4, 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m. (EDT).  After the FCC releases the text of the order, and we have conducted a more thorough analysis, we will provide clients with updated conclusions and recommendations in additional e-lerts and newsletters.

Clients interested in participating in the webinar can register online on the JSI website.  The deadline for registering is 5:00 p.m. (EDT) on Thursday, Nov. 3.  After you register, we will contact you regarding how to access the webinar.  For purposes of this webinar, we ask clients to please limit their actual connections to no more than two per company.

If you have questions about the webinar or the draft order, contact Manny Staurulakis (mstaurulakis@jsitel.com), Steve Meltzer (smeltzer@jsitel.com), or John Kuykendall (jkuykendall@jsitel.com) in JSI's Maryland office, at 301-459-7590, or Douglas Meredith (dmeredith@jsitel.com) in our Utah office, at 801-294-4576.