States rights vs. federal rights.
It’s an argument that is becoming more and more common in today’s wireless industry.
It’s certainly not a new argument, and it’s certainly not an argument that anyone expects to go away soon. In fact, it is probably one of the first disagreements our founding fathers had.
Here’s how it’s playing out in wireless:
The Eugene, Ore., City Council is considering a four-month moratorium on tower-siting requests from wireless industry players, including AT&T Wireless Services Inc., AirTouch Communications Inc., Sprint Spectrum L.P., Western Wireless Corp. and others. City officials say they need time to respond to new regulations enacted in the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which state in part that local governments cannot stop wireless companies from erecting tower sites in certain locations unless there is a legitimate reason. Aesthetics and fear of supposed radiation from the sites are not legitimate reasons.
The federal law is intended to stop impediments to building out new wireless networks. Getting this provision into the wireless telecom law was a coup for the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association.
CTIA also was the major proponent of equal interconnection charges included in the telecom bill. The law now says that if state arbitration between wireless carriers and local exchange carriers reaches an impasse, the matter will be forwarded to the Federal Communications Commission, which already suggested proxy interconnection rates.
LECs fiercely oppose this, claiming that they have been signing interconnection agreements left and right, and that they have been using state public utilities or service commissions to arbitrate disputes-without any federal oversight-for years. LECs contend the FCC is overstepping its bounds.
Ameritech evidently felt so strongly about this issue that its mobile communications subsidiary, Ameritech Cellular Services, dropped out of CTIA late last week.
In the meantime, Western Wireless said it cannot reach interconnect agreements with LECs U S West Communications Inc. and GTE Telephone Operations in 13 states, and it is seeking state intervention. However, Western Wireless is quick to note that many of the states in which it is seeking arbitration do not have arbitration rules. Is that foreshadowing a plan to use the FCC’s default interconnect rates?
States rights vs. federal rights.
It is dividing the telecom industry, as traditional wireline monopolies-which have strong standing alliances with state PUCs and PSCs (and that contribute much PAC money at the state level)-and their wireless counterparts find they are on opposite sides of the fence again.
