*Pages 1--1 from Microsoft Word - 35069* SEPARATE STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MICHAEL K. POWELL Re: Federal- State Joint Board on Universal Service; Virginia Cellular, LLC, Petition for Designation as an Eligible Telecommunications Carrier in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Competition is for rural as well as urban consumers. In this item, we recognize the unique value that mobile services provide to rural consumers by giving added substance to the public interest standard by which we evaluate wireless eligible telecommunications carriers (ETC). At the same time, we reinforce the requirement that wireless networks be ready, willing and able to serve as carriers of last resort to support our universal service goals. The areas Virginia Cellular proposes to serve are indeed rural – they are areas where retail rates do not cover the cost of providing service and where high- quality wireless service is intermittent or scarce. This decision remains true to the requirement that ETCs must be prepared to serve all customers upon reasonable request and requires them to offer high- quality telecommunications services at affordable rates throughout the designated service area. In this case, Virginia Cellular has documented its proposed use of federal universal service funding and made important commitments to provide high-quality service throughout its designated service area. To ensure that Virginia Cellular abides by its commitments, moreover, we have imposed reporting requirements and, of course, retain the right to conduct audits and other regulatory oversight activities, if necessary. Despite the importance of making rural, facilities- based competition a reality, we must ensure that increasing demands on the fund should not be allowed to threaten its viability. Incumbent local exchange carriers, competitive local exchange carriers and wireless carriers should have a competitively neutral opportunity to receive universal service funding. Yet determining an effective, equitable and affordable means of balancing competition and universal service goals is no easy task. The Federal- State Joint Board on Universal Service (Joint Board) is now considering a comprehensive record on these issues and plans to provide a recommended decision to us. I urge them to conclude their inquiry as expeditiously as possible in light of the complexity of the issues involved. Once we receive recommendations from the Joint Board, I hope to move quickly to provide much- needed regulatory certainty in this area and to ensure the support necessary to maintain a sustainable, competitively neutral universal service fund. 1