1. (1) The Utah Universal Public Telecommunications Service Support Fund (UUSF) shall be funded as follows:

   1. (a) Unless Subsection R746-8-301(3) applies, providers shall remit to the Commission $0.98 per month per access line that, as of the last calendar day of each month, has a place of primary use in Utah in accordance with the Mobile Telecommunications Sourcing Act, 4 U.S.C. Sec. 116 et seq.

   2. (b)(i) "Place of primary use" means the street address representative of where the customer's use of the telecommunications service primarily occurs.

      1. (ii) A provider of mobile telecommunications service shall consider the customer's place of primary use to be the customer's residential street address or primary business street address.

      2. (iii) A provider of non-mobile telecommunications service shall consider the customer's place of primary use to be:

         1. (A) the customer's residential street address or primary business street address; or
         2. (B) the customer's registered location for 911 purposes.

   3. (c) A provider may collect the surcharge:

      1. (i) as an explicit charge to each end-user; or
      2. (ii) through inclusion of the surcharge within the end-user's rate plan.
   4. (d) A provider that offers a multi-line service shall apply the surcharge to each concurrent real-time voice communication call session that an end-user can place to or receive from the public switched telephone network.

   5. (e)(i) Except as provided in Subsection R746-8-301(1)(e)(ii):

      1. (A) A provider that offers prepaid access lines or connections that permit access to the public telephone network shall remit to the Commission $0.98 per month per access line for such service, such as new access lines or connections, or recharges for existing lines or connections, purchased on or after January 1, 2018.
      2. (B) Subsection R746-8-301(1)(e)(i) operates in lieu of Subsection R746-8-301(1)(a) in that a provider who is required to make a remittance for an access line under Subsection R746-8-301(1)(e)(i) is not required to make an additional remittance for the same access line under Subsection R746-8-301(1)(a).
      3. (C) Multiple recharges of a single prepaid access line during a single month do not trigger multiple remittance requirements.
      4. (ii) The charge described in Subsection R746-8-301(1)(a) does not apply to a prepaid wireless telecommunications service, as defined in Section 69-2-405, that is subject to the service charge described in Subsection 69-2-405(2)(b).
      5. (iii) $0.98 per month is both the maximum and minimum amount of remittance necessary for any single access line.

2. (2)(a) A provider shall remit to the Commission no less than 98.69% of its total monthly surcharge collections.

   1. (b) A provider may retain a maximum of 1.31% of its total monthly surcharge collections to offset the costs of administering this rule.

3. (3)(a) Subject to Subsection R746-8-301(3)(b), a provider may omit the UUSF surcharge with respect to an access line that is described in Subsection R746-8-301(1), and:

   1. (i) generates revenue that is subject to a universal service fund surcharge in a state other than Utah for the relevant month for which the provider omits the UUSF surcharge;

      1. (ii) for the relevant month for which the provider omits the UUSF surcharge, was not used to access Utah intrastate telecommunications services; or
      2. (iii) subject to Subsection R746-8-403(5), receives subsidization through a federal Lifeline program approved by the FCC.

   2. (b) A provider that omits any UUSF surcharge pursuant to Subsection R746-8-301(3)(a) shall:

      1. (i) maintain documentation for at least 36 months that the omission complied with Subsection R746-8-301(3)(a); and

      2. (ii) consent to any audit of the documentation requested by the:

         1. (A) Commission; or
         2. (B) Division of Public Utilities.
   3. (c) A provider who omits any UUSF surcharge pursuant to Subsection R746-8-301(3)(a) shall report monthly to the Division of Public Utilities, using a method approved by the Division, the number of omissions claimed pursuant to Subsections R746-8-301(3)(a)(i) and R746-8-301(3)(a)(ii).

KEY: Utah universal service fund, surcharges and disbursements, speech/hearing challenges, assistive devices and technology

Date of Last Change: July 1, 2024

Notice of Continuation: February 16, 2023

Authorizing, and Implemented or Interpreted Law: 54-3-1; 54-4-1; 54-8b-15; 54-8b-10