Texas Senator Says Wireless Infrastructure Companies Can’t Choose Their Own Regulation
The author of Texas’s small-cells law said he never meant to spur regulatory-regime shopping by wireless infrastructure companies. Senate Business and Commerce Committee Chairman Kelly Hancock (R) countered arguments by ExteNet and Crown Castle in a letter to the Public Utility Commission sent the day before commissioners were to discuss a controversial proceeding about PUC authority over wireless network nodes in the right of way (ROW). Commissioners chose not to discuss the wireless item at their Wednesday meeting, but approved two other items on the state USF.
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The small-cells law established a new Chapter 284 in Texas Local Government Code, but cities and the infrastructure companies clashed over whether it replaced the older Chapter 283 (see 1709290017). Under Chapter 283, ExteNet and Crown Castle didn’t have to pay the cities for ROW use because the chapter calculated payment based on number of access lines and the infrastructure providers don’t have any lines. The small-cells bill updated the compensation regime to account for technological change, but after it was enacted, Crown Castle and ExteNet argued the new law didn’t supersede the old one, disagreeing with cities and PUC staff.
“SB-1004 was designed to address the contractual impasse and impose a regulatory framework for all ‘network node providers’ to access public rights of way in a competitively neutral manner,” Hancock wrote in the letter in case 47530. “It was never my intention to allow CTPs that are ‘network node providers’ the discretion to choose the regulatory regime that they determine is the more profitable. Any assertion that the aforementioned CTPs have this ability runs counter to the spirit of SB-1004 by giving one segment of telecommunications providers a competitive advantage over others.”
Commissioners held the network-nodes item because they wanted more time to consider it, a PUC spokesman said. They scratched the item from the agenda before receiving the state senator's letter, he said. Commissioners didn’t say when they would hear the item, he said. The next meeting is Oct. 26. Texas appointed a new chair, DeAnn Walker, to the PUC on Sept. 20 and she wasn’t part of previous commission meetings about the ROW compensation issue.
The bill author’s letter “should be helpful to Houston’s position,” said a spokeswoman for Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner (D). During negotiations on the bill, Houston asked for an amendment to clarify that Chapter 284 would be the controlling rule so companies couldn’t try to choose their own regulatory scheme, but AT&T officials in the legislative talks said the proposed edit was “unnecessary,” she said. The Hancock letter supports cities’ arguments the new law is intended to place the old regime, which local governments argued is limited to landline regulation, agreed an attorney for local governments. But the attorney cautioned that one legislator’s letter isn’t necessarily expression of the fully body’s intent. ExteNet and Crown Castle didn’t comment.
Texas commissioners approved two state USF items by unanimous consent at their open meeting. Under an amendment to state USF rules in case 46053, hotels and motels need not pay Texas USF fees on guest telecom services. It also exempts developments and owners or lessors of offices or residential buildings that resell telecom services to guests or tenants. The PUC didn’t receive any comments after proposing the change in June (see 1706290026). Also, commissioners agreed to delegate authority to Executive Director Brian Lloyd to make an award in a September request for proposals for a statutorily required annual audit of state USF finances and internal controls of the fund administrator, currently Solix. Proposals are due Oct. 30 for the contract that would cover FY 2017-20.