BillMax Logo

Changes to the FCC 477 Report

The FCC has recently announced that the FCC 477 reports going forward (2022 and beyond) must now use the 2020 Census when reporting Census tracts and blocks for subscribers and deployment locations.

To support this requirement, BillMax is providing two alternatives to its clients. Option 1) Upgrade to a release greater than or equal to BillMax 2022.8895. Option 2) Patch your system to use the 2020 Census. Before implementing Census 2020 in BillMax, you must make sure that all filings prior to 2022 have been made and have been accepted by the  FCC. Please read these instructions completely before proceeding. If there are any questions about the process, please contact us at suppport@billmax.com.

For option 1, see instructions for upgrading at https://www.billmax.com/billmax/webhelp/#UpgradeBillMax.html. Please note, depending on the level of local customizations, upgrading may require careful planning and review before proceeding. The latest release is available via the ‘Files’ link in your customer portal at https://www.billmax.com/portal.

For option 2, download and install the latlong2census.pl and census.php files. These files are available via the ‘Files’ link in your customer portal at https://www.billmax.com/portal. The census.php script must be copied to /usr/local/billmax/html/census.php and the ownership/permissions must be “-rw-r—– 1 billmax billmax”. The latlong2census.pl script should be copied to /usr/local/billmax/src/scripts/latlong2census.pl and its ownership/permissions must be “-rwx—— 1 billmax billmax”. Lastly, you must configure BillMax to use the census.php file for the census lookups. To do this, edit the /usr/local/billmax/local/billmax.conf file. Add or set, as needed: BX_CENSUSURL=“https://127.0.0.1/census.php”

Regardless of which option above is used, the existing census information in BillMax must be replaced with the appropriate new census data. To do this you must run: /usr/local/billmax/src/scripts/latlong2census.pl -table <table name> -force for all tables that contain census data where <table> is ‘user’ and either ‘pop’ or ‘location’ tables. The ‘pop’ table is used in recent versions in BillMax. For older versions, the ‘location’ table is used instead.

Once these steps are complete and successful, the FCC 477 report can be run. It is important, that in this report cycle that you regenerate the coverages and merge the deployment as described on the FCC 477 report page.

 

BillMax Logo

 

Geocoding

Our geocoding vendor has moved from http to https. Please have your BillMax System Administration update the following:
Add the following line to /usr/local/billmax/local/billmax.conf.
Stop and start your customer portal if you use it.

 

If you are a hosted customer, this change has already been completed this afternoon.

 

We apologize for the short notice.

 

Regards,

BillMax Support
support@billmax.com
817-446-7776

BillMax Logo

Internet Tax Freedom Act
 
Hawaii, New Mexico, Ohio, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin still charge tax on internet services. If your company belongs to another state, please verify- but you should not need any changes. Below is an article with more details:
We have created a one time script for changing the taxability on internet services. Internet services must be noted as “Facilities Based Broadband” in the FCC Classification display box on each Service Definition. The script will turn off sales tax just prior to the batch run on 7/1/2020 when you add a batch process. To retrieve our instructions and the script, please login to the customer download area at BillMax.com.

If you need your account credentials, please contact us. If you are a hosted client, please contact us if you want us to take care of this process for you. We hope you and yours remain safe and healthy.

 

Regards,

BillMax Support
support@billmax.com
817-446-7776

BillMax Logo

Authorize.net New Fraud Settings
 
According to Authorize.net they have sent out notices over the last several months explaining that they would be adjusting several setting in their Fraud Detection suite. We have seen these changes impact our customers so please review your settings. One example is the velocity (the number of transactions allowed in an hour). Because BillMax does much of its payment processing in batch, we recommend that you change the velocity to 1800 (2 seconds per transaction per hour).
Below is an article with more details:
We hope you and yours remain safe and healthy.

 

Regards,

BillMax Support
support@billmax.com
817-446-7776