WASHINGTON-With telephone penetration as low as 20 percent on some Indian reservations, the Federal Communications Commission last week began exploring ways to extend telecommunications services to tribal lands.
The lack of telecom services on tribal lands stunned the FCC. By comparison, 90 percent of Americans not living on reservations have phone service.
“We have a moral obligation to do something here … notions of equality … make it unconscionable that Indians, the first Americans, are the last Americans at having the wonders and benefits of the telecommunications revolution,” said FCC Commissioner Gloria Tristani.
The FCC held a series of hearings earlier this year to learn about the need for telecommunications services on tribal lands. The FCC’s goal “is to ensure that the country does not become divided into information `haves’ and `have-nots,’ ” the agency said.
With two notices of proposed rule making, the FCC hopes to determine the reasons the teledensity level is so low and create incentives for carriers to serve these areas.
The further NPRM from the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau will examine whether universal service subsidies can be determined using competitive bidding. The idea carriers that would bid-with the lowest bid winning-on how much it would cost to serve an area is not new, but this is the first time the FCC has shown an interest in the concept, said Randall S. Coleman, vice president for regulatory policy and law for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau will examine possible rule changes, including relaxing antenna height, power rules and build-out requirements, said the WTB’s Joel Taubenblatt.
CTIA found the possible rule changes contained in the WTB item to be encouraging. “We’re encouraged. We’re open. We hope that some of these things can bear fruit,” Coleman said.
The Personal Communications Industry Association was pleased that instead of assigning the issue to only the Common Carrier Bureau, which is more tied to wireline regulation, the FCC chose to assign the issue to both the common carrier and wireless bureaus. “It has been a little difficult to talk about wireless services with the Common Carrier Bureau. We will be able to talk wireless with the wireless bureau,” said Angela Giancarlo, PCIA director of federal regulatory affairs.
Some carriers such as Dobson Cellular Systems and Alaska Digitel L.L.C. already offer some services to tribal lands, and it is hoped the FCC’s initiative will lead to other innovative offerings. For example, Alaska Digitel is working with TDX Corp., an Alaskan Native corporation, to bring telephone service to St. Paul Island. St. Paul is 800 miles west of Anchorage.
Additionally, the Common Carrier Bureau will be looking at whether the federal government has jurisdiction to designate telecommunications carriers-mostly wireless-as eligible to receive universal service support.
Western Wireless Corp. has been urging the FCC to grant it eligible telecommunications carrier status in several states and Thursday expanded that request to include the Crow Reservation in Montana. ETC status would allow Western Wireless to collect the same universal service subsidies incumbent local exchange carriers collect for serving the same class of customers.
Another carrier, Smith Bagley Inc., also has a pending petition for ETC status in Arizona.
Both Western and SBI hinge their requests on a provision enacted last year in the Communications Act of 1934 that requires the FCC to give universal service subsidies to those serving tribal lands. Some see the legislative provision as pertaining only to tribally owned telephone companies, so this is one area in which the FCC must make a determination when it releases the final rules.
