Maine Telecommunications Education Access Fund & the ConnectME Fund

As of July 1, 2008, Rolka Loube Saltzer Associates is the administrator of the MTEAF and ConnectME Funds.  All questions, reports and payments scheduled to arrive on or after July 1, 2008 should go to the contact and filing address indicated within the filing instructions.

35-A M.R.S.A. §7104-B authorizes the Commission to implement the MTEAF in order to provide discounts to qualified schools and libraries for obtaining and using advanced telecommunications technologies, such as Internet access, internal connections, computers, training and content.  The statute mandates the integration of MTEAF and MUSF collections.  The Commission adopted Chapter 285 to implement the Fund.

Effective August 15, 2011, the PUC amended their rules to make absolutely clear that wireless carriers that sell prepaid service must report intrastate prepaid retail revenues (as well as post-paid intrastate retail revenues, if any) and submit the required levels of contributions for each Fund.

As under the rules prior to amendment, the default methodology a wireless carrier must use to determine its intrastate-interstate revenue allocation is the FCC safe harbor for wireless revenues. The FCC safe harbor percentage for wireless carriers can be found in the Instructions for Form 499-A. A wireless carrier may petition the PUC Director of Telephone and Water Utility Industries for permission to use an alternative allocation method for the reporting of intrastate revenues for MUSF and MTEAF purposes. See Chapter 285, §2.D.2 and Chapter 288, §4.G.3.

The revised rules contain new procedures for determining whether prepaid revenues should be considered Maine revenues rather than from some other state. This is a determination the carrier ordinarily would make prior to the intrastate-interstate allocation. See Chapter 285, §2.F and Chapter 288, §4.H.  The revised rules can be found at http://www.maine.gov/mpuc/legislative/rules/part2-telephone.shtml

Pursuant to 35-A M.R.S.A. §§9201-9215 the Connect ME Authority and the ConnectME Fund (CME) were established, and the Authority is authorized to administer the Fund.  The Authority adopted Chapter 101, which describes the operation of the Fund.  See http://www.maine.gov/connectme/authority/index.shtml for a collection of the laws pertaining to this fund.

The Administrator of the CME Fund also receives the quarterly revenue reports filed for the MUSF and the MTEAF, and the carriers filing those reports must remit contributions to the CME Fund based on the current rate of 0.25% of intrastate revenues.  VOIP, Internet service providers and providers of cable and satellite TV service must report their intrastate revenues (using a ‘safe harbor’ mechanism, as allowed in the CME Fund Administrative Rules, if necessary) to the Administrator and contribute to the ConnectME Fund (see §9202.3).  Facilities-based wireless communications carriers may voluntarily agree to be assessed as a communications service provider and contribute to the Fund based on reported intrastate revenues (see §9202.4.B).

Companies must report on a quarterly basis such that 

Introduction and Change of Administration Announcement (Adobe PDF)
Company ID List (Adobe PDF file)

Forms and instructions:  (Note that the Maine USF assessments will be invoiced, based on the revenues reported on the MTEAF column of this worksheet.)

or MTEAF & ConnectME Worksheet / Carrier Revenue Report  

(This report is provided in Microsoft Excel format, compatible with MS Excel 2010, 2007, 2003, 2002 and 2000.  If you do not have access to any of those programs, you may use the PDF version.) Version 4 posted 1/14/11

MTEAF & ConnectME worksheet / Carrier Revenue Report filing instructions

Under the reporting threshold? All carriers must report to the administrator quarterly, regardless of revenue level.  Carriers billing over $12,500 in quarterly revenues and carriers surcharging customers must complete a revenue report.  Carriers who billed under $12,500 during a quarter and who did not surcharge customers must certify to the administrator that they were under the threshold AND did not assess customers for the MTEAF, ConnectME nor the MUSF. Wording revised 4/21/09

For additional information, contact us.

*The 2010/2011 MTEAF rate was set by the Commission in an Order issued December 17, 2009, in Docket No. 2009-210.  The rate as of July 1, 2011 was changed to 0.003 per 2/1/11 Commission Order 2010-385.