Maine Telecommunications Education Access Fund & the ConnectME Fund

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

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.  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.  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.

Companies must report on a quarterly basis such that 

Introduction and Change of Administration Announcement (Adobe PDF)
Maine PUC Order setting budget and assessment rate for July 2008 - June 2009
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.)

MTEAF & ConnectME Worksheet / Carrier Revenue Report for periods July 2005 - current

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

MTEAF & ConnectME worksheet / Carrier Revenue Report filing instructions (Adobe PDF)

Under the reporting threshold? If your company billed less than $12,500 in retail revenues for a particular quarter, you may not have to complete a report.  If you don't tell them, how would the administrator know that your company didn't just forget to file versus being under the threshold?  Carriers who charge their customers a surcharge for the Maine USF, TEAF or ConnectME must report no matter the company's quarterly revenue level.  Those companies who are under the reporting threshold and who don't charge customers a surcharge may communicate in writing that for a particular quarter, it was under and did not charge customers.

For additional information, contact us.