WASHINGTON-Regulatory parity and universal service participation were the two common issues addressed by those who submitted comments regarding the Federal Communications Commission’s proposal to allow commercial mobile radio services operators to provide fixed local-loop services.
Most advanced wireless carriers already have the right to provide local service as an adjunct. In its Notice of Proposed Rule Making, the commission sought to increase mobile eligibility, to promote competition and to streamline the regulatory process.
Under current rules, wireless operators are exempted from state regulation, and the commission would like to maintain that status quo until such a time when it can be proved that the carrier does provide dial tone to a significant portion of the local population; most wireless commenters concurred. While agreeing with the FCC that CMRS providers should be allowed into the local loop, virtually all incumbent local exchange carriers disagreed with this proposal by using the old “if it walks like a duck” axiom.
“When CMRS providers begin offering fixed wireless loop services on a commercial basis, they should be regulated like their wireline competitors,” wrote The Bell Atlantic Telephone Companies. Going even further, GTE Service Corp., including its wireless division, wrote, “In order to ensure fair competition among all providers of local exchange services, however, the commission must first take action to remove all regulatory restrictions to LECs’ ability to price services in a competitive and economically efficient manner.”
U S West Inc., which supports the NPRM, agreed in part with GTE, writing, “If the [CMRS] rule changes are made, then all cellular licensees except the Bell companies would be able to use their cellular spectrum to provide fixed wireless local-loop services. The Bell companies, in contrast, would be denied this opportunity as long as the separate subsidiary restrictions*…*are maintained.” The Nynex Companies added, “It makes no sense at all to enable all other LECs as well as AT&T [Corp.], MCI [Communications Corp.], Sprint [Corp.] and others to serve the public via cellular spectrum, whether licensed, leased or resold, and to deny similar flexibility to the BOCs who today provide a substantial proportion of local service nationwide.”
Comcast Corp. presented an interesting scenario, saying that parts of the NPRM might prove more beneficial for LECs than for the wireless operators it was designed to help. “The proposals in the notice could … allow LECs to do an end-run around the pro-competition policies embodied in the [Telecommunications Act of 1996] by allowing the LECs to claim that their `integrated’ CMRS and wireline networks are not subject to the market-opening provision of the Act. Such a result would be devastating to emerging local exchange competition, thus causing the notice to have exactly the opposite effect from what the commission intends … In order to prevent LEC attempts to `bootstrap’ wireline local exchange services out of the state regulatory purview via the federal preemption over CMRS, the commission must declare that wireline services and obligations of incumbents LECs are not vitiated by provision in association with CMRS.”
And then there is the local-loop mandate to serve any and all customers, without discrimination. Many organizations with rural ties want to make sure that CMRS providers will not forget possible subscribers in remote areas who have had little or no access to dial tone. And in some cases, CMRS may not be the best answer to rural problems.
InterDigital Communications Corp., a manufacturer of Ultraphone wireless equipment that facilitates the Basic Exchange Telecommunications Radio Service, wrote that BETRS is the technologically superior technology because of its range, and that more spectrum needed to be allocated to that service. InterDigital also pointed out that most wireless carriers-including cellular and specialized mobile radio-have shown little interest in serving less-than-lucrative markets, which would include rural areas.
Agreeing with this complaint was the Organization for the Protection and Advancement of Small Telephone Companies. OPASTCO pointed out that the present regulatory scheme would allow CMRS providers to cherry-pick customers, rather than having them follow common-carrier rules. Unless current rules were changed, “These companies would be permitted to offer service only to the most profitable customers in a rural service area, leaving behind the remote, high-cost residential subscribers that the rural LEC is required to serve. In addition, they would not be bound to provide universal service to the customers they did choose to offer service, as defined by the Joint Board and the commission.”
Wireless commenters generally had no problem with universal-service compliance; but most wanted to see it addressed in a further rulemaking.
Surprisingly, there were two wireless companies that refused to support the advancement of their brethren via the NPRM. PCS One Inc. argued that no cellular licensees should be allowed to become local-loop providers, in that they already can provide fixed services on an ancillary basis. Instead, PCS One asked that additional flexibility be given to PCS licensees in order to allow them to compete on a level playing field against entrenched cellular carriers.
Bell Atlantic Nynex Mobile wrote that no rule changes were needed to codify wireless fixed local-loop provisions because the commission already authorizes broadband CMRS licensees to do so. In addition, BANM essentially told the commission not to waste its time and resources on this docket.
“The Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires the commission to initiate and conclude literally dozens of rulemakings within a matter of months. The commission has repeatedly expressed concern as to whether it has the resources to conduct even these rulemakings,” it wrote. “This docket, however, is not one of the proceedings mandated by the new Act. The commission should not expend its already strained resources by taking up the complicated task of crafting a new regulatory regime for certain wireless services.”
