In an Order adopted by the Federal Communications Commission (“FCC”) in November 2019, the FCC directed the Wireline Competition Bureau and the Office of Economics and Analytics to collect information regarding potentially prohibited equipment existing in current networks, along with the costs to purchase, install, remove, and replace such equipment.  Data submissions are due no later than May 22, 2020.  Please contact Robin Tuttle at [email protected] or Dee Herman at [email protected] if you would like assistance with this filing.

If a service provider’s network contains covered equipment, the provider must identify the number of covered equipment or services for each network category and specify both the cost of purchasing and installing the covered equipment or services (for equipment in use as of December 31, 2019, and for equipment no longer in use) and the estimated costs of removing and replacing covered equipment or services.

• Costs to purchase and install covered equipment or services must be historical cost, supported by invoices, and the accounting must follow generally accepted accounting principles and the Part 32 Uniform System of Accounts for telecommunications companies.  Costs must be allocated across five network categories: (1) access layer equipment; (2) distribution layer equipment; (3) core layer equipment; (4) software; and (5) services.
• Filers should demonstrate how they arrived at estimated costs of removing and replacing covered equipment or services.