II

107TH CONGRESS

1ST SESSION S. 1127

To stimulate the deployment of advanced telecommunications services in rural

areas, and for other purposes.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

JUNE 28, 2001

Mr. BROWNBACK (for himself and Mr. ENZI) introduced the following bill;

which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce,

Science, and Transportation

A BILL

To stimulate the deployment of advanced telecommunications

services in rural areas, and for other purposes.

1 Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa2 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

3 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

4 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rural Broadband De5 ployment Act of 2001’’.

6 SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.

7 (a) FINDINGS.—Congress makes the following find8 ings:

9 (1) Consumers living in rural areas require ac10 cess to advanced telecommunications services in
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1 order to be full participants in the American econ2 omy.

3 (2) The current rate of deployment of advanced

4 telecommunications services in rural areas is inad5 equate and must be accelerated.

6 (3) Certain regulations issued by the Federal

7 Communications Commission make the deployment

8 of advanced telecommunications services cost prohib9 itive in rural areas.

10 (b) PURPOSE.—It is the purpose of this Act to stimu11 late the deployment of advanced telecommunications serv12 ices in rural areas by exempting carriers serving such

13 areas from regulations that make the deployment of such

14 services cost prohibitive.

15 SEC. 3. PROHIBITION ON REGULATING ADVANCED TELE16 COMMUNICATIONS SERVICES IN RURAL

17 AREAS.

18 (a) IN GENERAL.—Part 1 of Title II of the Commu19 nications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. 201 et seq.) is amended

20 by adding at the end the following new section:

21 ‘‘SEC. 232. ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICES IN

22 RURAL AREAS.

23 ‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—The provisions of this Act shall

24 not apply to advanced telecommunications service de25 ployed by a carrier in a rural area.
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1 ‘‘(b) RURAL AREA DEFINED.—In this section, the

2 term ‘rural area’ means any place or territory, whether

3 incorporated or unincorporated, that—

4 ‘‘(1) is located outside of a Metropolitan Statis5 tical Area (as determined by the Office of Manage6 ment and Budget); and

7 ‘‘(2) has a population of less than 50,000.’’.

8 (b) ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERVICE DE9 FINED.—Section 3 of that Act (47 U.S.C. 153) is

10 amended—

11 (1) by redesignating paragraphs (1) through

12 (51) as paragraphs (2) through (52), respectively;

13 and

14 (2) by inserting before paragraph (2) the fol15 lowing new paragraph (1):

16 ‘‘(1) ADVANCED TELECOMMUNICATIONS SERV17 ICE.—The term ‘advanced telecommunications serv18 ice’ means any service that consists of or includes

19 the offering of a capability to transmit, using a

20 packet-switched or successor technology, information

21 at a rate that is generally not less than 384 kilobits

22 per second in at least one direction. Such term does

23 not include special access service offered through

24 dedicated transport links between a customer’s
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1 premises and an interexchange carrier’s switch or

2 point of presence.’’.

Æ