WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission has reduced by one penny the amount of regulatory fees commercial mobile radio services carriers must pay to 30 cents per unit.
“Clearly the FCC is recognizing the growth of the wireless industry. This growth reflects the downward trend in the cost of regulatory fees. Congratulations. They are moving in the right direction,” said Brian Fontes, senior vice president for policy and administration for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
Regulatory fees are a separate assessment from filing fees since regulatory fees go to offset congressional appropriations and filing fees are sent to the general treasury.
Congress, which sets the amount of regulatory fees to be collected each year, told the FCC to collect 7.7 percent more for fiscal year 2000 than it collected for 1999. Regulatory fees amount to about 80 percent of the FCC’s annual budget.
The FCC had proposed 31 cents per unit, which was one cent less than the amount paid last year, but the agency said that data collected from CTIA and garnered from reports filed at the Securities and Exchange Commission convinced it that the number of subscribers was larger than it originally thought so it could reduce the assessment.
Notwithstanding the decrease in the assessment, Fontes said there is still concern that the money collected for the FCC’s regulatory activities is going to fund such operations.
“One fundamental question about regulatory fees in general is what type of auditing mechanism exists to determine if regulatory fees are being used appropriately. Are the regulatory fees paying for what they are supposed to be paying for?” Fontes asked.
In addition, specialized mobile radio operators had complained that language previously contained in regulatory fee orders changing SMRs from the CMRS category to the CMRS messaging category was omitted in the notice of proposed rules released earlier this year. The FCC admitted its mistake and changed the amount that SMRs must pay from a proposed 31 cents to 4 cents.
