WASHINGTON-Rep. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) said the new telecommunications law does not erase federal jurisdiction of wireless telecommunications, a strong statement aimed at dissuading federal regulators from abandoning a proposed bill-and-keep interconnection plan in favor of broad guidelines that could stifle local competition and the development of wide-area wireless networks.
“Our intent was not to have 51 (50 states and the District of Columbia) different rate determinations on the wireless community,” said Coburn at last Thursday’s oversight hearing of the House telecommunications subcommittee.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt and Commissioner Susan Ness said they are studying the interplay of 1993 legislation that pre-empted state regulation of commercial wireless services and 1996 Telecommunications Act requirements for telecom carriers to negotiate interconnection arrangements with local landline telephone companies.
State regulatory commissions mediate disputes between parties.
The impact that Coburn’s remarks might have at the FCC remains to be seen. The agency is distancing itself from the bill-and-keep, or reciprocal termination, plan proposed last December, and appears bent on folding wireless-wireline interconnection rules into broad interconnection guidelines that will be finalized next week.
As such, the wireless industry faces an uphill battle, and the prospect of losing the biggest regulatory battle of 1996. The regional Bell telephone companies have lobbied aggressively against reciprocal termination and attempts by long-distance telephone companies to enter the local market through resale.
FCC lawyers believe that treating wireless carriers differently from other telecommunications service providers in terms of interconnection raises legal concerns.
Wireless carriers pay an average of three cents to local landline telephone companies that terminate paging, cellular, personal communications services and specialized mobile radio calls but receive nothing for connecting wireline calls.
The FCC’s reciprocal termination plan would have wireless and wireline carriers keeping revenues from calls they originate and terminating each other’s calls for free.
