An Ill. state appeals court reversed an Ill. Commerce Commission ...
An Ill. state appeals court reversed an Ill. Commerce Commission ruling that had denied state universal service subsidies for secondary access lines. The ruling by the 5th Ill. Appellate Court on a challenge to the state’s rules for the…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
If your job depends on informed compliance, you need International Trade Today. Delivered every business day and available any time online, only International Trade Today helps you stay current on the increasingly complex international trade regulatory environment.
Ill. universal service fund said the state’s definition of eligible services was more restrictive than the FCC’s rules. The court (Case 5-02-0199) also said denial of support for 2nd lines wrongly assumed that all secondary lines were discretionary, dismissing the needs of schools and libraries for subsidies on all their lines. The court said there was no good reason why access to 2nd lines should be more expensive for rural customers than for urban customers. The court remanded the secondary lines issue to the ICC. On another point of the telcos’ challenge, the court upheld the universal service funding level set by the ICC in March 2002, which acted to reduce the fund’s size 20% over a 3-year span and capped the charge to customers at $20.39 monthly. The court said it wasn’t in position to 2nd guess the ICC’s interpretation of the case record, and there was no evidence that the agency acted in an arbitrary or capricious manner.