FCC Should Move Forward on Changes to Cellular Licensing Rules, Industry Says
AT&T and Verizon Wireless said there is widespread agreement that the FCC should change how the cellular service is licensed -- from a site-based to a geographically based regime. The FCC sought comment in February (CD Feb 16 p12) in a notice of proposed rulemaking, and reply comments were due last week.
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"Commenters of all types, small market/rural providers, a national provider, a regional provider, a wireless industry association, and a rural telecommunications association, despite their diverse interests, coalesced around a central theme -- the Commission should modify the cellular service rules in a manner that is demonstrated to minimize administrative burdens on wireless providers, facilitate the expansion of service into unserved areas, and accelerate the deployment of advanced wireless services,” AT&T said (http://xrl.us/bnbu7b). There’s general agreement that “the current site-based cellular rules provide no valuable information to the Commission and the day-to-day site-based filings impose an unnecessary burden on cellular licensees that is unjustified relative to their limited utility,” AT&T said.
"The commenters in this proceeding agree that site-based licensing is intrinsically more burdensome and expensive to administer than a market-based system,” Verizon Wireless said (http://xrl.us/bnbu7u). “Site-based systems impose comparatively greater application filing requirements on licensees, and require a greater level of oversight and administration by Commission staff.” In summary, “the cellular site-by-site licensing regime imposes more costs and complexity, yet provides less certainty to wireless providers and to the public, than the geographic area system used for PCS, AWS and many other spectrum bands."
The FCC proposed a two-stage process for moving to geographic licensing. Cellular overlay licenses would be offered in stage one for all cellular blocks that meet a proposed “substantially licensed” test, the agency said. In those markets, site-based licensing would end and overlay licenses would be assigned through competitive bidding. But in other blocks, site-based licensing would continue for seven years, before shifting to geographic licensing.
CTIA, the National Telecommunications Cooperative Association and the Rural Telecommunications Group filed joint comments, taking issue with one of the FCC’s proposals. The three associations said instead of conducting an overlay auction to convert site-based cellular licenses to market-area licenses, the FCC should deem that all existing cellular licenses are market-based licenses, with the geographic boundaries of each license being determined by the licensee’s Cellular Geographic Service Area. “Cellular licensees will experience a drastic reduction in the number of filings they need to make with the Commission, the Commission’s licensing databases will be more clear and accurate, the potential for entry by a new unserved area licensee will remain, and the pitfalls associated with overlay auctions will be avoided” if the proposal is adopted, they said (http://xrl.us/bnbu8t). “Further, adoption of this proposal is consistent with the Administration’s calls for efficiency in federal regulation.”