Timing is everything.
Ask Thomas Wheeler, president of the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, who took advantage of auction frenzy to send Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt a somber message.
On the day before the Oct. 28 application filing deadline for the Dec. 5 broadband personal communications services auction, Wheeler sent a letter to Hundt that began by saying the signing up of bidders “is just the end of the beginning for wireless policy.”
Wheeler, who would love PCS members under his big wireless tent, warned that unless attention is paid to three problem areas, President Clinton’s vision of an Information Sky Way chock full of competitive wireless carriers may not come to pass.
Less glamorous than herculean wireless alliances announced in the weeks before the PCS filing finale, according to Wheeler, are questions about whether local governments and “not-in-my-backyard activists” should be allowed to block the dotting of cell sites throughout communities across America and whether wireless carriers should be taxed for that privilege; whether telephone companies should be forced to loosen their grip on telephone number assignments and access fee pricing; and whether some states should continue to rein in wireless firms’ ability to set rates.
…..Looks like Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ernest Hollings, D-S.C., may not be so neutral after all on the PCS pioneer’s preference provision in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade he hates.
Seems Fritz didn’t take to being criticized by The Washington Post for delaying the GATT vote by holding hearings on the 123-nation free trade pact. American Personal Communications, one of the firms designated a pioneer by the FCC, is 70 percent owned by The Post. The other two are Cox Enterprises Inc. and Omnipoint Corp. Each firm was given a regional PCS license.
The Clinton administration has come under attack by some in Congress and industry for burying in GATT a provision that further marks down the FCC-discounted price on the potentially lucrative licenses, despite the fact the government originally did not intend to charge for pioneer permits. Only after Congress passed spectrum auction legislation did the FCC and lawmakers have a change of hearts and minds.
A Senate Commerce panel aide says Hollings never signed off on the PCS measure in GATT. The deal reportedly was brokered by House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., House Telecommunications Subcommittee head Edward Markey, D-Mass., the three pioneers and the administration.
Hollings plans to hold a hearing next week on “Title VIII, Section 801” in GATT on pioneer preferences.
Look for the usual suspects to testify: an FCC official other than Hundt, who is not allowed to talk about it; Pacific Telesis Group; a broadband PCS pioneer preference recipient (probably Omnipoint President Doug Smith because he’s a smaller target than The Post or Cox); and perhaps conservative legal eagle Bruce Fein (a former Reagan-era FCC general counsel).
The House and Senate are expected to vote on GATT shortly after Thanksgiving. Depending on election results, GATT passage is not guaranteed.
