WASHINGTON-With the scheduled adjournment of the 105th Congress last Friday, the wireless industry will be able to point to few visible victories. Indeed, industry can point to just two victories-one early in the session and one as Congress was racing to get out of town.
The win to ban unauthorized cloned phones was a major triumph for the industry, which for years had been losing money when criminals cloned wireless phones and then used them to make a slew of long-distance and high-priced calls that were charged to the original subscriber.
The importance of the second success to criminalize identity theft is a little harder to quantify. While Tim Ayers, a Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association spokesman, said it was “a big win for the industry … a very, very important issue,” others said it was an issue where the industry came late to the party and jumped on the bandwagon.
High-profile issues that seemed possible only weeks ago, like antenna siting and extending the grandfather date on the digital wiretap act, are dead and must wait until next year to be revived.
The fate of the budget is still unknown. At press time, House and Senate conferees were expected to continue to meet to work out a compromise bill to fund the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and the Federal Communications Commission.
Other issues-bankruptcy and the C-block amendment-disappeared almost as fast as they appeared after frantic lobbying killed both issues.
Anti-cloning
The bill, which received attention in late 1997 and early this year, was signed by President Clinton April 24.
Identity Theft
The Identity Theft and Assumption Deterrence Act helps carriers that unwittingly sign up fake customers and then lose money when the real people are identified. The bill makes it a crime to use someone’s name or social security number to assume someone’s identity before committing any fraud.
Bankruptcy bill
One less-visible win for the wireless industry was getting something removed from a bill. Language had been inserted in the bankruptcy reform legislation that would have lumped wireless carriers in the same category as utilities and required carriers to continue service even to those who could not pass the current credit checks used by wireless carriers.
This language was removed in an 11th-hour move in the bankruptcy reform conference after CTIA President Tom Wheeler joined on a letter urging its removal.
CALEA
When the FCC extended the compliance date to June 30, 2000, the pressure on Congress to step in and do something was seriously diminished. When Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, refused to include language in the Department of Justice authorization bill, the wireless industry’s hopes of extending the grandfather date of the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act of 1994 died.
E911/antenna siting
This bill, designed to bolster wireless E911 development through improved federal-land antenna siting, was declared dead a week before the session ended when Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz). chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, withdrew it from consideration.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), an ardent supporter of local control over tower siting, offered to put a hold on the legislation, which would have prevented it from being considered on the Senate floor.
McCain is expected to push this issue in the 106th Congress.
While successful in helping kill the McCain legislation, Leahy apparently could not get his own bill-to return all authority over tower siting to local officials-passed.
FCC and NTIA budgets/Portals move
The House and Senate have each passed Commerce appropriations bills to fund the FCC, NTIA and other agencies. The bills are awaiting action by congressional appropriators. The FCC is preparing to move into the Portals building Oct. 23. Because this move has not been budgeted for, it is likely the FCC will have to furlough employees during fiscal year 1999.
Wireless privacy
The House passed and sent to the Senate the Wireless Privacy Enhancement Act of 1998, but this bill failed to advance in the Senate after some senators saw it as politically motivated.
Satellite technology
A Defense Department authorization bill that would shift oversight of high-tech export licensing from the Commerce Department to the State Department is awaiting the president’s signature. A separate measure by Sen. John Breaux (D-La.) to make the United States space launch industry more competitive died before reaching markup.
RCR Washington Bureau Chief Jeffrey Silva contributed to this report.
