WASHINGTON-Congress has charged the Federal Communications Commission with raising $152.5 million in regulatory fees for fiscal year 1997, a $26.1 million (nearly 21 percent) hike above the amount the commission had to raise to finance FY96.
To reach this goal, a notice of proposed rulemaking released by the agency March 5 has amended the fee schedule upward for some services and downward for others, depending on regulatory costs.
The commission’s Office of the Managing Director said it would try to hold the line at 25 percent for any fee increase, but this is not necessarily true, because of the methodology used by OMD to calculate new rates for FY97. In some cases, including wireless, fees this year could jump 46 percent.
“The commission’s regulatory fees will recover the costs of enforcement, policy and rulemaking, international and user information activities for FY97,” OMD commented in a written statement. “Additionally, the commission proposes to amend the schedule in order to assess regulatory fees upon licensees and/or regulatees of services not previously subject to payment of a fee, to simplify and streamline the fee schedule and to clarify and/or revise certain payment procedures.”
As the NPRM stands now, land mobile services (included 220 MHz, specialized mobile radio providers and other private providers in the above-470 MHz band) and microwave licensees will pay $10 per license (up from $7 in FY96); general mobile radio service licensees and land mobile licensees (not including private and commercial operators) will pay $5 per license (up from $3); commercial mobile radio service providers will pay 24 cents per unit (up from 17 cents); and CMRS one-way paging operators will pay 3 cents per unit (up from 2 cents).
The wireless industry, which will be responsible for 10.75 percent of the total fees, is mulling over the commission’s proposal. “The fees are higher, but we are more concerned this year about our members who transitioned from being private carriers to being commercial mobile radio services carriers last year,” said Jill Lyon, director of regulatory affairs for the American Mobile Telecommunications Association. “These members are subject to new fees.” Mark Crosby, president of the Industrial Telecommunications Association, wants to see how the commission plans to use the new fees to bolster enforcement along with other services. “I think the public would be interested in where the commission plans to dedicate this money,” he said. AMTA and ITA will be submitting comments March 25 on the NPRM; however, the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association plans to let the proposal stand without comment.
Land mobile services, microwave services, private land mobile services and the general mobile radio service fall into the commission’s “advance payment” category, in which payment for the entire run of their licenses-including initial, renewal and reinstatement-is required in full, in advance. The date will be revealed when the report and order on this NPRM is adopted later this year.
