While Congress and the Federal Communications Commission will have a full plate of wireless and high-tech issues this fall, policymakers are unlikely to move on any sweeping measures for the remainder of the year.
Nonetheless, telecom/high-tech policy matters before Congress and the FCC are significant. Indeed, the FCC next week is expected to approve using local public safety answering points rather than statewide averaging to determine carrier location accuracy compliance for wireless enhanced 911. But that anticipated ruling will not be the end of the story on E-911. Rather, it is more likely to recast the debate on a number of levels, including implementation and enforcement. At the same Sept. 11 meeting, the FCC is expected to tighten 800 MHz re-banding benchmarks for Sprint Nextel Corp. to ensure the uneven process is completed by next June. On the same day, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., is due to hear oral argument on a challenge to an FCC ruling that rejected a claim that it illegally licensed 6,000 towers in the Gulf Coast because the impact on migratory birds was not assessed.
Meantime, Congress will come out of the block scrambling to extend the existing Internet tax ban-due to expire Nov. 1-for another four years. A permanent Internet tax ban-supported by the cellphone industry and others-has some support in Congress, but realistically is not well positioned for passage when lawmakers return from their August recess this week.
Wireless list
The wireless industry’s top legislative priority has not changed. Lobbyists are pressing lawmakers to expand federal pre-emption beyond the parameters of a 1993 law, as they work with key telecom House members to try to create a national regulatory framework for wireless carriers. Taxation, billing, antenna siting and other wireless issues continue to be flashpoints at the state and federal levels because of the current legal framework that reserves to states some oversight of wireless carriers. The FCC appears poised to rule soon on the cellular industry’s petition to make early termination fees off limits to state legislators and plaintiffs’ lawyers, but an industry win could prove difficult because of the 11th Circuit’s repeal of the FCC decision to pre-empt states from regulating line-item charges on cellphone bills.
Congress probably will not advance House and Senate Republican bills to outlaw discriminatory taxes on wireless carriers.
House and Senate members, however, are expected to continue oversight of the digital TV transition, a process tied to the return of 700 MHz spectrum for public-safety and commercial wireless licensing. The FCC soon will be hit with regulatory challenges to the 700 MHz auction ruling, while agency officials review comments on anonymous competitive bidding procedures for the auction, scheduled to begin Jan. 16.
Broadband, net neutrality concerns
Elsewhere, a bill to improve broadband data collection is poised for a vote on the Senate floor. The United States’ sub-par broadband penetration ranking on the global stage continues to be a sore, politically vulnerable spot for the Bush administration. President Bush has championed universal, affordable broadband access in 2007. As such, Democrats, who control Congress but are the minority in the GOP-led FCC, can be expected to continue trying to exploit the broadband issue for the rest of the year and well into 2008 presidential campaign season. A federal court last week ruled against a public-interest group’s lawsuit to obtain broadband records from the FCC.
Network neutrality, an Internet issue that bled into the wireless space during the 700 MHz debate, is still very much alive and continues to cause rumblings on Capitol Hill and at the FCC.
The FCC, for its part, is moving closer to a decision on whether to cap high-cost universal service support to wireless carriers in rural areas. It will mark the start of universal service fund reform. The agency will also be grappling with possible changes to special access pricing, roaming and emergency alert rules, while lawmakers try to move legislation to curb wireline-to-wireless number portability delays and to prevent cities from blocking deployment of municipal broadband systems.
“We expect our issues will be well examined [this fall],” said Joe Farren, a spokesman for cellular trade association CTIA.
