AT&T Seeks More Time To File Rural Call Completion Report Due to 'Difficulties'

AT&T asked the FCC for an extra three months to file a rural call completion report for the third quarter. In a petition filed on Monday in docket 13-39, AT&T asked for a three-month waiver from a November 2013 rural call completion rule requiring "covered providers" to file quarterly reports on their compliance with duties to "record and retain specified information" on every long-distance toll-call attempt. Noting the commission allowed for a conduct "safe harbor" and waiver process to guard against undue regulatory burdens, AT&T said it was granted a previous six-month waiver Feb. 2 so it could implement a plan to "retain and report data based on a statistically valid sample of inter- and intrastate calls to rural and nonrural areas," which required "extensive system changes." But AT&T said "due to unexpected difficulties, that timeframe has proved to be insufficient to test and validate" its rural call completion data, so it needed another three months to complete its implementation work and file a quarterly report.