New Mexico Administrative Code › Title 17 - PUBLIC UTILITIES AND UTILITY SERVICES › Chapter 11 - TELECOMMUNICATIONS › Part 10 - STATE RURAL UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND › Section 17.11.10.19 - ANNUAL DETERMINATION OF FUND

Current through Register Vol. 35, No. 13, July 16, 2024
A. The administrator shall determine the amount of the fund for the next calendar year and submit its findings to the commission on or before November 10 of each year to enable commission approval on or before November 20 of each year in order to provide carriers with sufficient time to implement any change in the surcharge rate.
B. In the event the commission orders a change in fund support, pursuant to 17.11.10.14 or 17.11.10.25 NMAC of this rule or otherwise, that necessitates a fund amount greater than that which the commission has previously established, the commission may order an adjustment to the amount of the fund, subject to the annual fund cap set forth in Subsection C of 17.11.10.19 NMAC.
C. The amount of the fund shall be equal to the sum of each ETC's revenue requirement, calculated pursuant to this section, plus any other fund requirements determined by the commission, including pursuant to 17.11.10.25, 17.11.10.31 or 17.11.11 NMAC, plus projected administrative expenses and a prudent fund balance; provided however, the total amount of the fund shall not exceed a cap of thirty million dollars ($30,000,000.00) per year.
D. Only carriers holding state ETC status as of October 1 shall be included in the calculation of funding requirements for the subsequent calendar year.
E. Except where the commission has established an alternative or additional amount pursuant to 17.11.10.25 or 17.11.10.31 NMAC, the revenue requirement for 2018 and each year thereafter for each ETC that was eligible as of July 1, 2005 and is a local exchange carrier shall be equal to the carrier's 2014 SRUSF revenue requirement adjusted by the annual percentage change in the number of access lines served by the carrier as of December 31 of the prior calendar year compared to the number of access lines served by the carrier as of December 31, 2014, and then reduced by the carrier's imputed benchmark revenue. For 2021, the access lines used for the comparison to 2014 shall be as of December 31, 2019, adjusted annually thereafter. The SRUSF revenue requirement formula under this section may be stated arithmetically as follows: revenue requirement minus imputed benchmark revenue.
F. The revenue requirement for an ETC that became an ETC after July 1, 2005 or that became an ETC prior to July 1, 2005, but is not a local exchange carrier, shall be determined annually by the administrator in conjunction with the administrator's determination of fund size, and shall be in accordance with the support rate determined by the commission pursuant to 17.11.10.23 NMAC.
G. For an ETC that is not eligible for funding pursuant to rate rebalancing per Subsection K of Section  63-9H-6 NMSA 1978 that has been previously authorized for support pursuant to Subsection M of Section  63-9H-6 NMSA 1978, that ETC may petition for ongoing funding pursuant to Subsection K of Section  63-9H-6 NMSA 1978, subject to the following:
(1) the commission shall award an applicant ongoing fund support at no less than the average access line amount of funding support for comparable carriers; provided that an eligible telecommunications carrier receiving fund support pursuant to the subsection shall not offer basic local exchange residential and business services at rate levels lower than the rates for such services charged by any of the comparable carriers used for the determination of the level of support;
(2) the commission shall act upon a request for ongoing fund support within one hundred twenty days of the filing of the request.