WASHINGTON-If a newly released notice of proposed rulemaking is adopted, private and commercial wireless telecommunications carriers will be subject to no change in their 1996 regulatory fee structure; figures have been kept at 1995 levels. Only low-earth-orbit satellite providers, who were exempt from such payments until this year, will experience a change. Personal communications services licensees will pay nothing in 1996.
Congress is requiring the Federal Communications Commission to collect $116.4 million in fees to recover costs related to enforcement, policy and rulemakings, and international and user information activities.
The NPRM (MD Docket No. 96-84) proposes to replace the public mobile/cellular radio fee category with a CMRS category. It also seeks to replace the public mobile one-way paging category with a CMRS one-way paging services category. Licensees in these categories-which include certain business-radio concerns, 220-222 MHz systems, specialized mobile radio services, 800 MHz air-to-ground services and offshore Part 90 radio services-would pay on a per-mobile or a per-subscriber unit basis or on a per-pager basis. Traditional paging carriers would pay on a per-unit basis as well.
On the non-commercial side, land mobile and microwave licensees would pay an annual $6 per license, payable for the entire term of a new, renewed or reinstated license. This translates to $30 for a five-year license or $60 for one lasting 10 years. Private land mobile providers would pay an annual $3 per call sign ($15 per five-year license). General mobile radio services licensees would pay the same $3 per annum fee. Amateur radio operators who hold vanity call signs would pay a $3-per-year fee for the 10-year life of the license ($30 total).
CMRS carriers-cellular, SMR, two-way paging-and their resellers would pay 15 cents for each cellular or mobile unit.
