Proposed 2010 FCC Regulatory Fees Released

On April 13, the FCC released its proposed schedule of FY 2010 FCC Regulatory Fees. By law, the FCC is obligated to collect $335 million in fees in FY 2010 from the entities that it regulates. This order identifies how the FCC proposes to allocate the fees. Among the highlights:

• The regulatory fee for telecommunications carriers increases to $0.00351 per dollar of interstate and international revenue. The FCC projects that it will collect $157 million from telecommunications carriers, 57% of the total it will collect in regulatory fees. (For my views on the proportionality of this, see my earlier post here.)
• As with last year, the FCC will not mail invoices to telecommunications carriers. Carriers must submit the fee payment by the deadline.
• Audio bridging providers must make regulatory fee payments. However, the FCC again mistakenly refers to audio bridging providers as common carriers (see fn 26).

The Commission has requested comment on these proposals. It will adopt a final regulatory fee schedule in July. Regulatory fee payments will be due by the end of September and are subject to a 25% late payment penalty if not paid on time.