WASHINGTON-A federal appeals court on Friday sent back to the Federal Communications Commission rules that said wireless carriers must have consistent long-distance rates in all of their U.S. service areas.
At issue is whether Congress intended for commercial mobile radio service carriers to be included when it said interexchange (or long-distance) carriers had to average their rates. Congress did not expressly include CMRS carriers in the rules, leaving the FCC and the industry to arrive at opposite conclusions.
The decision of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will have little practical impact since the FCC has not applied its rate-integration rules to CMRS carriers. The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association claimed victory on the issue, urging the FCC to overturn its previous decision that said CMRS carriers were subject to rate integration.
The court’s ruling means the FCC will have to make a final decision on whether CMRS carriers should have to average their rates across all U.S. properties.
“It appears we need to determine whether our interpretation of the term of interexchange telecommunications service providers applies only to wireline or comparable CMRS services,” said an FCC spokeswoman.
The policy of rate integration dates back to 1972, when the FCC told AT&T Corp. it could not charge more for long-distance calls to and from offshore U.S. areas (Alaska, Hawaii and the various territories) than it charged for long-distance calls in the contiguous 48 states. The FCC did not require the same of CMRS operators when it began licensing wireless carriers.
Congress codified the rate integration policy when it passed the universal-service provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The legislative history of the telecom act said it was codifying FCC policy but did not say whether the policy could be expanded to CMRS.
