WASHINGTON-The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau last week supported a proposal from the Rural Utilities Service to allow mobile-phone operators to receive loans for providing service to rural areas.
“The wireless bureau supports these proposals and believes that allowing the applicants to the telecommunications loan program to seek financial assistance to provide mobile telecommunications will assist in the provision of telecommunications services to rural areas,” said WTB chief Thomas Sugrue in a letter to the RUS.
While the Federal Communications Commission’s wireless bureau supports the proposals, it did suggest a few changes.
The first change would delete a reference to voice services so as to not preclude wireless-data carriers from receiving the loans.
The second change would eliminate specific signal levels. Sugrue noted that digital cellular technologies differ from analog technology and personal communications services technology so a one-size-fits-all approach will not work.
The RUS telecommunications loan program provides borrowers with loans at interest rates and terms that are more favorable than those generally available from the private sector. The RUS is a unit of the United States Department of Agriculture and was formerly known as the Rural Electrification Administration. The proposed rules will change the existing loan program. Currently, loans are limited to carriers offering local exchange carrier service.
