The Wireless Industry’s Last Chance
By Vic Jackson

August 13, 2002

On August 12, 2002 Mountain Communications, a small paging company located in Pueblo, Colorado filed a Petition for Review of an FCC Order in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. This little noticed "David versus Goliath" undertaking should be at the top of the agenda for every wireless Paging, PCS and Cellular Company that intends to remain in business in the USA. Quite frankly, this state of affairs is result of a colossal change of direction by the FCC in the past year. In one fell swoop, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 has been basically wiped off the books for wireless carriers. If the FCC’s latest Mountain Order is allowed to stand, every commercial wireless carrier is going to spend a lot more money with the incumbent carriers on bogus facility "double dips," trying to stay in business. And that’s not the only telephone connection problem. The FCC recently has not only made it a lot more expensive to obtain blocks of telephone numbers for new customers, they have mandated number portability for Cellular and PCS. These regulatory roadblocks translate into considerable expense without any tangible benefit to the wireless carriers or their customers. 
In the Mountain Order, the FCC has decreed that Mountain must pay Qwest, the famous local phone company known for its shady business dealings of late, for receiving local calls. Yep, you read that correctly! Mountain has to pay Qwest for receiving calls just like in the good old pre-1996 days! Now wait a minute, you say, doesn’t the 1996 Act specify that Qwest is supposed to pay Mountain for terminating calls? Not according to the FCC’s latest Order! Unfortunately, the FCC’s Mountain Order also applies to all wireless carriers including Cellular and PCS. In the FCC’s grandly named 1996 Local Competition Order, the incumbent local exchange carriers were supposedly put on an even footing with all other "telecommunications carriers" and required to "open" their networks to "competition." Six years later, the only real "competition" for the monopoly local exchange carriers in the residential and small business market is the Internet and a rapidly emerging unlicensed wireless industry. Technology, bless its electronic heart, has moved faster that the FCC and the Incumbent local exchange carriers can make laws to stop it. Sadly, many of the not so fittingly named competitive local exchange carriers have been helped along to bankruptcy by the FCC’s anti-1996 Act decisions in the past few years. Now it may be the wireless industry’s turn. 
The local exchange carriers have spent the last six years fighting with big bucks in Congress and massive lobbying with Federal regulators to save their monopolies and it is finally paying off at the FCC. Of late, the FCC has either decreed by Order, or has put the industry on notice of its intent to negate the guts of the 1996 Act, by shutting off payment for local calls, re-bundling "unbundled" network elements, letting the incumbent carriers into the long distance business and requiring wireless carriers to pay for receiving local calls originated by the monopoly carriers. 
The wireless industry’s only chance to stop the FCC from reversing the 1996 Telecommunications Act is in Federal Court. The Mountain Order is a perfect example of FCC double talk and mumbo jumbo that directly contradicts earlier FCC Orders without a word of explanation or logic. David needs all the help he can get fighting Goliath. If you are in the wireless industry, pay attention to this drama. Call David Balsick at Mountain Communications (719.253.7762) and lend your support. It will be your business on the line next if Goliath wins.