Three NARUC Telecom Resolutions Advance

The withdrawn resolution draft, TC-4, would have urged the telecom industry to respond to emergency situations differently. A draft urged the FCC to “direct CMRS providers to cease blocking a mobile text/FM radio dual handset solution for implementation of the Warning, Alert and Response Network (WARN) Act of 2006,” (http://xrl.us/bng7ny). The state commissioners and staff are in the midst of discussing these resolutions. Drafts were first released online a week earlier (CD July 18 p12) and have already undergone various edits to language and substance.

"I'm going to withdraw the resolution, with your permission,” sponsor Indiana Utility Regulatory Commissioner Larry Landis told the telecom subcommittee at a meeting Sunday. He said he could read votes as well as anyone, that the wireless industry had “coalesced” against him and the resolution and that the resolution wouldn’t pass. Landis also asserted the idea behind the proposal has “momentum” and within two-three years, it will have “critical mass” and succeed.

Staff unanimously approved resolutions to preserve state authority to tax or surcharge VoIP for states’ USF, telecom relay services and E-911 funds and asking the FCC to enforce rules against rural call termination violations. After extensive debate, the subcommittee voted 9-3 to send forward a second resolution from Landis that questions the quantile regression analysis the FCC has initiated to determine USF funds. The subcommittee also unanimously approved a motion requesting that the telecom-related language in a gasoline-focused resolution be struck, then voted to table the amendment resolution. Monday, the telecom committee commissioners first discussed the remaining proposed resolutions and each sponsor had a chance to present their case for why they should be passed. The telecom commissioners will have a fuller conversation Tuesday, where they hear subcommittee staff’s take, and commissioners can decide which version to move forward. Wednesday, the full NARUC board will vote on which resolution drafts will become NARUC policy.

The one withdrawn resolution created some of the controversy due to how it framed emergency communications. “Our industry is not blocking deployment of these chip sets,” CTIA State Affairs Director Jackie McCarthy told the telecom staff Saturday afternoon. The wireless industry has acted consistently with the WARN advisory committee’s recommendations, and the resolution “doesn’t acknowledge” that recommendation and is “at odds” with its request, she said. Commission staff already worried about the resolution’s ability to survive 24 hours before it died. “This resolution will go nowhere,” said Shelley Johnson, senior policy analyst of the Oregon Public Utility Commission, at the first discussion of resolutions. Johnson described her fears that the resolution was at odds with the broader direction of the Department of Homeland Security and Federal Emergency Management Agency. The WARN Act “has been gobbled up by a larger entity, and this entity has already said it likes the wireless solution the way it is,” she said of the text-message alerts system.

The resolution draft implied judgment of which way is the best to communicate in emergencies, said Wisconsin Commission Telecom Analyst Brian Rybarik at Saturday’s meeting. He said he doesn’t know the best way to accomplish that -- whether it be by text message, FM chips, radio or otherwise. Traditional radio batteries also last far longer than cellphone batteries, said Roxanne Scott of the California Public Utilities Commission. In that state, people are encouraged to retain radios for emergencies, she said. “Why do we want people to think their cellphone is a radio?” After Landis withdrew the resolution, Colorado PUC Telecom Chief Lynn Notarianni said it needed “more dimensions” and should be part of a “bigger package” of emergency response, taking into account consumer education and assertions on state and local authority. “I appreciate you taking a stab at this resolution more than once,” she told Landis, referring to a past resolution Landis had attempted to introduce on the same topic.

The three remaining proposed resolutions will continue to be debated and potentially be liable for additional edits, with the representatives of industry as well as NARUC commissioners now paying closer attention as they move closer to NARUC policy. Telecom Committee Chairman John Burke of Vermont said TC-3 on quantile regression analysis will “probably be the cocktail-hour conversation among commissioners tonight.” It was the one resolution to inspire three industry representatives to speak up at the telecom committee’s Monday gathering, in contrast to all other proposed resolutions, which inspired none.