Insular Rate for Cellular Customers Act

Madam Speaker, I rise today to reintroduce legislation that will require rate integration for wireless interstate toll charges. Specifically, this legislation, H.R. 3565, would amend Section 254(g) of the Communications Act of 1934, as amended by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, to provide for rate integration of wireless long distance service within the United States, including the territories. This legislation, if enacted, would require uniformity in rates charged by cellular phone and other wireless service providers for calls and communications to and from Guam within the United States.

Section 254(g) directs the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ``to adopt rules to require that the rates charged by providers of interexchange telecommunication services to subscribers in rural and high cost areas shall be no higher than the rates charged by each such provider to its subscribers in urban areas.''

Pursuant to Section 254(g), the FCC promulgated a regulation (FCC Order 98-347) to cover Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS) as an interexchange service. CMRS includes Personal Communications Service (PCS) and cellular services. In defense of their Order, the FCC noted that ``if Congress had intended to exempt CMRS providers, it presumably would have done so expressly as it had done in other sections of the [1996 Telecommunications] Act.''

The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, however, subsequently vacated FCC Order 98-347, by ruling that interexchange telecommunication services do not encompass CMRS. In its ruling, the Court cited the phrase ``interexchange telecommunications service'' contained in Section 254(g). Since wireless telecommunications

technically do not use exchanges, the Court held that ``it is by no means obvious that the Congress, when it used a phrase in which the word `interexchange' is an essential term, was referring to CMRS.''

It is, therefore, unclear from the language of the statute whether section 254 applies to wireless services. Section 254 does not include specific language regarding its applicability to wireless services. Nor does it specifically exclude such services. Moreover, the legislative history of Section 254(g) is not instructive as to Congress' intent regarding the applicability of the rate integration requirement to wireless services.

Ambiguity in the law therefore exists. As a result, cellular customers are subject to varying rates for calls made within the United States. This is particularly evident with respect to rates assessed to calls made to Guam and to the other U.S. territories under service plans offered to cellular customers within the 48 contiguous states of the United States. Again, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 requires rate integration for noncellular, landline communication services. The legislation that I have reintroduced today would simply extend this same requirement to wireless communications.

Rate integration for wireless interstate toll charges is important to businesses and individuals located on the U.S. mainland who engage in regular and reoccurring voice communication with other businesses and contacts located in the offshore territories. Family members and friends are among the customers who are assessed higher and different rates for cellular calls made to Guam or to the other territories. These differences in wireless rates exist despite the fact that the U.S. territories are included in the North American Numbering Plan, the numbering plan for the Public Switched Telephone Network of the United States.

This legislation would bring the uniformity and fairness in rates desired by those consumers located on Guam who aim to keep in regular contact with relatives, friends, and associates who reside in other parts of the United States through the latest technology. Additionally, as technology in telecommunication advances, laws should be updated and developed to keep pace. This legislation would update existing law to take into account advances in and the popularity of wireless telecommunications since enactment of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The legislation would do so in a manner consistent with both a previous, but vacated, FCC Order and with rate integration requirements applied to other more traditional telecommunication technology.

I look forward to addressing the issue of rate integration for wireless services as part of any legislative effort to reauthorize the Telecommunications Act of 1996.