Although the United States did not announce that any immediate cases would be filed with the World Trade Organization, it set a series of deadlines for the countries to remove the offending barriers or risk that WTO cases would be filed.

The other nations named in the annual review of telecommunications practices were Germany, South Africa, Peru, Israel and Taiwan.

Prior to the administration’s accusations it issued a separate report accusing Japan of violating its WTO commitments by refusing to lower interconnection fees that U.S. telecom companies complain are designed to keep them out of the Japanese market.

Philip Bolme, James Schultz and Chester Lura were all re- elected to their seats on the board. Mr. Schultz serves as Red River’s representative on the North Dakota Association of Telephone Cooperative’s board of directors.

The Communications Act of 1934 precludes States from regulating CMRS (commercial mobile radio service) providers’ market entry or prices, and wireless carriers in the past have asked courts to overturn other States’ consumer- protection actions as Federally forbidden rate regulation, according to State and Local Communications Report.

The associations voiced two principal concerns with the RUS proposal, according to the Texas Telephone Association. First, they challenged the agency’s definition of mobile service as fundamentally different from “telephone service,” under provisions of the REA statute, thereby circumventing the non-duplication provision in the law. The associations contend that mobile service is telephone service and that RUS is prohibited by law from lending to provide mobile service in any area that is receiving adequate telephone service.

Second, the associations object to language in the proposed rule that simply assumes that mobile companies are in compliance with the State Telecommunications Modernization Plan requirements, while wireline borrowers are held in strict compliance with the law.

In addition to hosting their annual Congressional Luncheon for members and staff of the State’s delegation, North Dakota representatives met with 65 urban members of Congress to explain the issues affecting rural telephony and their impact on urban Americans. A group of North Dakotans also met with Rural Utilities Service acting administrator Chris McLean and deputy administrator Roberta Purcells during their trip to Washington, D.C.

In its comments, according to the Association’s newsletter, NTCA urged the FCC to require all interexchange carriers (IXC’s) to offer to their rural customers the same discount calling plans that the long distance companies are currently offering their urban customers, and to charge them the same rates. Many of the long distance companies are not currently offering long-term discount calling plans, such as the AT&T One Rate 7¢ plan, to some customers served by rural telephone companies.

In addition, NTCA urged the FCC to confirm that Sprint and AT&T will remove the minimum use charges and the primary interexchange carrier charges (PICCs) on all customer bills, including the customers of rural telephone companies. Both Sprint and AT&T have promised to take this action if the FCC adopts the modified CALLS plan.

The bill, which was introduced last fall, mandates that only only jurisdictions with authority to tax mobile phone calls would be those within a wireless caller’s “place of primary use.” A slightly different measure has been offered in the House of Representatives by Congressman Charles Pickering (R-Miss.).

Representatives from the wireless industry and municipalities voiced support for the legislation during the early March hearing. They said the bill was the product of three years of negotiations among industry members, the National Governors’ Association, the National League of Cities, the Federation of Tax Administrators, and the Multistate Tax Commission.

A press release from NRTC indicates Mr. Brown will work with the strategic leadership and management of the company’s industry and member relationships, member growth and public relations.

Kelley’s resignation is effective immediately. Onvoy board chairman Paul Hoff will serve as interim CEO while a search for a new CEO is conducted.

A group of 65 Minnesota telephone companies own 75 percent of Onvoy. The remaining 25% is owned by Soros Private Equity partners of New York, who invested $50 million in Onvoy in September 1999.

When the merger is complete, the NISC membership will be 430 members in 46 States serving over 5 million electric or telephone subscribers. The new organization is projected to have assets of $31 million, equity of $9 million and annual revenue of $43 million.

Offices employing 480 will be maintained in Mandan and St. Peters, and the consolidated organization is scheduled to be operational prior to July 1, 2000.

The affected exchanges of the subsidiary, BEK I, include Lehr, Linton, Napoleon, Steele, Wishek and Zeeland.

The attack on RUS borrowers was unanticipated because a Congressional committee was holding a hearing on legislation to create a new $1.25 billion loan guarantee program for the provision of local-to-local broadcast television signals. The program would be administered by RUS, however.

In response, NTCA executive vice president Michael Brunner sent letters to every member of Congress citing the organization’s full support of the RUS and its loan programs and said the audit was “misleading” because “graduating” borrowers is neither envisioned nor required by the Rural Electrification Act.

The Council told the FCC that retaining the annual cap of $2.25 billion would mean that “not even schools and libraries that qualify for a 90% discount would be guaranteed support for internal connections.” It also asked the FCC to let unused program funds from earlier years to roll over to subsequent years.

Arkansas had the lowest level of subscribership, at 87.2% compared with Pennsylvania’s high of 97.5 percent. Ninety- five percent of households headed by whites had telephone service, while 87.7% of homes headed by blacks and 89.7% of Hispanic-headed homes had service. Ninety percent of unemployed people had phone service, and 95.6% of employed people did.

The companies have agreed to:

*Spend approximately $170 million over the next four years to improve local telephone service in the State;

*Offer advanced broadband services to at least 13 Minnesota cities outside of Minneapolis-St. Paul;

*Invest in preparation of their lines in the State so more customers can have access to high-speed Internet and other broadband services; and

*Pay penalties of $15 to $50 million per year, with the money to be returned as customer credits if the new company does not meet service quality obligations.

The merger has received approval from Federal agencies, pending the FCC’s approval of long distance company divesture, and awaits clearance from regulators in Arizona, Minnesota, Montana, Washington, Wyoming and Utah.

The merged company will retain the Qwest name and employ about 64,000 people worldwide. The combined company will have more than 3 million miles of fiber in the United States and worldwide, 29 million customers and a local network that is 99.2 percent digitally switched.

Long distance users will see a 0.4 percent increase to generate $17 million annually to subsidize phone service for American Indians. Census figures indicate that half of those homes lack telephones, although the nation is 94 percent wired. About 300,000 Indian households will receive basic phone service, which does not cover long distance calls, for $1 a month.

Chairman Kennard said that 82 percent of public schools in the country and more than 50 percent of public libraries received E-Rate discounts in 1999 and that there were 36,000 applications totaling $4.7 billion last year.

Steven Haas, Director of State and International Universal Service Programs for the National Exchange Carrier Association, told members of the Commission that North Dakota has wide discretion in which State services it wishes to support. Mr. Haas said programs supported by state universal service funds across the country include high-cost support, revenue recovery or rate rebalancing, emergency 911, telecommunications relay service, the Lifeline program, the Linkup program, state support for schools, libraries and health care facilities, and the provision of special telecom equipment for physically challenged individuals.

Representative Grosz noted the difficulty of creating a fund large enough to support all of the desired services and said the first priority of the Commission would be designing a program supporting the high-cost areas of the State that ensures a full deployment of high-quality service for all North Dakotans.

The Regulatory Reform Review Commission includes two members of the House of Representatives, Rep. Mick Grosz and Rep. Eliot Glassheim; two members of the Senate, Sen. Vern Thompson and Sen. Rich Wardner; and, Public Service Commission Bruce Hagen.