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FCC wants more of the rural wireless story

The Federal Communications Commission issued a notice of inquiry at its monthly agenda meeting this week asking for information on wireless services in rural areas.

By: Shira Levine
America’s Network Weekly

The NOI asks whether the Commission should modify its policies to promote the rollout of more spectrum-based services in rural areas and requested information on what types of wireless services are already being deployed.

The FCC also requested comment on the effectiveness of several policies already in place, including small business bidding credits in spectrum auctions; variation in the sizes of geographic service areas for spectrum licenses; the availability of geographic partitioning and spectrum disaggregation arrangements with existing licenses; and the use of construction benchmarks as performance requirements.

“Spectrum policy should not be a blunt instrument, but a precision tool enabling us to facilitate as many services as possible to benefit the American people,” FCC Chairman Michael Powell said. “By the questions we ask today, we hope to learn more about the unique characteristics of rural spectrum America.”

Many rural service providers have been reluctant to offer wireless services, citing difficulty in obtaining financing and dissatisfaction with the spectrum auction process. In a recent survey conducted by the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association, over half of the respondents said they would not participate in any future spectrum auctions.

NTCA CEO Michael Brunner said he was pleased by the FCC’s NOI. “For some time, NTCA has urged the commissioners to consider the needs of rural telecommunications providers. Hopefully, this notice will be the beginning of a string of regulatory initiatives that will lead to policies that benefit the rural telephone companies that we serve,” he said.

The FCC also adopted a notice of inquiry seeking data for its annual report to Congress on competition in the commercial mobile radio services (CMRS) industry and asked for public comment on the possibility of allowing unlicensed devices to operate in additional frequency bands. It was the first open meeting for new commissioner Jonathan Adelstein, but after initial comments, Adelstein recused himself from voting, citing financial conflicts of interest that were still being resolved. — Shira Levine

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