Citing national security, the Dept. of Homeland Security (DHS) an...

FCC has a rule that carriers only partly owned by another carrier with a 214 certificate can’t start service without prior notification. In March, FCC released a rulemaking asking whether the Commission should relax this rule and allow carriers to essentially use their parent’s certificate. CMRS carriers argue they shouldn’t be subject to the same regulation as wireline communications. The carriers note that Sec. 214 of the Communications Act was written to apply to wireline communications. “CMRS providers have always viewed themselves as a newer service that should be subject to less regulation,” one regulatory attorney said Fri.: “They look at all these rules that apply to wireline service and they say we're different.” But DHS and DoJ worry that without a prior notice requirement a carrier could be partly owned by a terrorist organization. DHS and DoJ said they “strongly urge” the FCC to keep the mandate in place. “The rule is necessary to protect the public interest in preventing entities who may present a risk to national security or law enforcement interests from providing service pursuant to a parent entity’s Section 214 authorization,” the departments said. “Elimination of the rule would significantly and adversely impact our ability to safeguard national security and critical law enforcement concerns -- at the very time when we are striving to identify and plug any gaps in our national security.”