Haley Stevens: “I tried to go into this a little bit last night, and I do not know whether this is the time now, but I just point out to…”

“I tried to go into this a little bit last night, and I do not know whether this is the time now, but I just point out to my friend that the April issue of the bulletin known as Personal Communications contains an article that mentions Donald Cox, who is the former Bellcore wireless leader who is now at Stanford. He has calculated that digital-based station technologies will lower capital costs for wireless customers to $14 compared to the current cellular cost of $5,555. What it really means is we have the possibility of moving into a new domain as far as digital radio is concerned that will deal with telecommunications competing with telephone companies. One of the things in this amendment is that we will now require that the State must find that there will not be a significant adverse impact on users of telecommunications services or on the provisions of universal service. I question whether at the time of the transition into these new technologies a State should have to make findings that are based upon the use of the old technology. That is one of the problems. If you lock a State into findings, I think you may hamper the transition to less costly services and, of course, that is where I am coming from. That is why I support this bill. I think it will lower the cost ultimately of service to rural areas by bringing in additional providers of service. It should not be tied to the old wire services that we have relied upon in the past.”