Rural Associations File Petition for Waiver of Five-Year Plan Requirement

On April 1st, WTA, NTCA, NECA, ERTA, ITTA and USTelecom filed an Emergency Petition for Clarification requesting that the FCC clarify that RLECs are not required to file five-year plans without receiving reasonable advance notice of the filing deadline in order to prepare and complete such plans. Alternatively, the associations recommended that “if the Commission does not believe that such clarification is warranted or appropriate, it should grant on an emergency basis a blanket waiver of any applicable requirement to submit a five-year plan in 2013, and should waive the deadline for such filings until at least July 1, 2014, (if not later), given other significant reform implementation tasks now underway…”