Arizona Administrative Code › Title 14 - PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATIONS; CORPORATIONS AND ASSOCIATIONS; SECURITIES REGULATION › Chapter 2 - CORPORATION COMMISSION - FIXED UTILITIES › Article 12 - ARIZONA UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND › Part A - HIGH COST FUND › Section R14-2-A1204 - Funding of the AUSF

Current through Register Vol. 30, No. 28, July 12, 2024
A. The
				  AUSF shall be funded in accordance with this Article by all telecommunications
				  service providers that interconnect to the public switched network. Within 30
				  days of the effective date of this Article, and thereafter on or before October
				  1 of each year, each telecommunications provider shall provide to the
				  Administrator a list of all other telecommunications providers that
				  interconnect to its facilities or network.
B. The AUSF shall be funded equally by toll
				  and local customers of the providers of telecommunications services, and shall
				  be assessed in the following manner:
1.
				  Category 1 - Providers of basic local exchange service, as discussed in
				  R14-2-1204(B)(1)(a),
				  and other service providers as required under
				  R14-2-1204(B)(1)(a)(i)
				  or permitted under
				  R14-2-1204(B)(3)(b),
				  shall be considered providers of Category 1 service.
a. One-half of the AUSF funding requirement
				  will be collected through Category 1 service providers. Category 1 AUSF
				  assessment will be based upon access lines and interconnecting trunks, and
				  assessed by providers of local switched access as either an access line or
				  interconnecting trunk surcharge. The "per access line" surcharge to be in place
				  during a given year will be calculated by the Administrator using the total
				  number of access lines and equivalent access lines deriving from
				  interconnecting trunks that were in service for all Category 1 service
				  providers on October 1 of the previous year. Access lines shall include
				  business and residence lines, public access lines, and other identifiable
				  access lines. All wireless providers including but not limited to paging and
				  other Commercial Mobile Radio Service providers, that interconnect to the
				  public switched network will contribute to the AUSF under the requirements of
				  Category 1. The number of interconnecting trunks obtained from the local access
				  provider by the wireless provider shall be utilized in conjunction with a
				  Conversion Factor to determine AUSF support from such wireless provider by
				  means of a surcharge on such interconnecting trunks. A wireless provider that
				  fails to contribute to the AUSF as required by this Article shall be subject to
				  termination of its interconnection arrangements pursuant to
				  R14-2-1214(C).
b. On or before
				  November 1 of each year, each Category 1 local switched access service provider
				  shall provide to the Administrator the number of access lines and number of
				  interconnecting trunks that were in service on October 1 of that year. The
				  Administrator will use these numbers together with the Conversion Factor in
				  calculating the per access line surcharge and per interconnecting trunk
				  surcharge for the following year. The Administrator will multiply the total
				  number of interconnecting trunks by the Conversion Factor to obtain an
				  equivalent number of access lines for the purpose of calculating the
				  surcharges.