I 
115TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 2903 
To direct the Federal Communications Commission to promulgate regulations 
that establish a national standard for determining whether mobile and 
broadband services available in rural areas are reasonably comparable 
to those services provided in urban areas. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JUNE 15, 2017 
Mr. MCKINLEY (for himself and Mr. WELCH) introduced the following bill; 
which was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 
A BILL 
To direct the Federal Communications Commission to pro-
mulgate regulations that establish a national standard 
for determining whether mobile and broadband services 
available in rural areas are reasonably comparable to 
those services provided in urban areas. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Rural Reasonable and 
Comparable Wireless Access Act of 2017’’. 
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SEC. 2. AVAILABILITY OF MOBILE AND BROADBAND SERV-
ICES IN UNDERSERVED RURAL AREAS. 
(a) IN GENERAL.—Not later than 180 days after the 
date of the enactment of this Act, the Commission shall 
promulgate regulations that establish a national standard 
for determining, for purposes of rural, insular, and high 
cost universal service support pursuant to subsection 
(b)(3) of section 254 of the Communications Act of 1934 
(47 U.S.C. 254), whether commercial mobile service, com-
mercial mobile data service, and broadband internet access 
service available in rural areas are reasonably comparable 
to those services provided in urban areas. 
(b) UNDERSERVED RURAL AREAS.—The standard 
established under subsection (a) shall— 
(1) define a ‘‘rural area’’ as any area that is ei-
ther— 
(A) a rural area (as defined in paragraph 
(1) of section 54.600(b) of title 47, Code of 
Federal Regulations); or 
(B) a service area (as defined in section 
214(e) of the Communications Act of 1934 (47 
U.S.C. 214(e))) served by a rural telephone 
company (as defined in section 3 of such Act 
(47 U.S.C. 153)); 
(2) define a rural area as ‘‘underserved’’, with 
respect to a service described in subsection (a), if 
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service that meets or exceeds the standard estab-
lished under such subsection is not available in the 
area; and 
(3) provide that a rural area will be considered 
‘‘underserved’’, with respect to a service described in 
subsection (a), if tests show that the service avail-
able in the area does not meet or exceed the applica-
ble averages determined under subsection (c)(1). 
(c) DATA FROM URBAN AREAS.—The Commission 
shall— 
(1) gather data on average signal strengths and 
average speeds of commercial mobile service and 
commercial mobile data service, and on average 
speeds of broadband internet access service, provided 
in the 20 most populous metropolitan statistical 
areas; and 
(2) specify in the standard established under 
subsection (a) that— 
(A) commercial mobile service or commer-
cial mobile data service available in rural areas 
is reasonably comparable to that service pro-
vided in urban areas only if the average signal 
strengths and average speeds meet or exceed 
the averages determined under paragraph (1) 
for such service; and 
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(B) broadband internet access service 
available in rural areas is reasonably com-
parable to that service provided in urban areas 
only if the average speeds meet or exceed the 
averages determined under paragraph (1) for 
such service. 
(d) PERIODIC UPDATING OF DATA.—The Commis-
sion shall periodically update the data gathered under sub-
section (c)(1). 
(e) DEFINITIONS.—In this section: 
(1) BROADBAND INTERNET ACCESS SERVICE.— 
The term ‘‘broadband internet access service’’ means 
a mass-market retail service by wire or radio that 
provides the capability to transmit data to and re-
ceive data from all or substantially all internet 
endpoints, including any capabilities that are inci-
dental to and enable the operation of the commu-
nications service, but excluding dial-up internet ac-
cess service. Such term includes any service that the 
Commission finds to be providing a functional equiv-
alent of the service described in the previous sen-
tence. 
(2) COMMERCIAL MOBILE SERVICE.—The term 
‘‘commercial mobile service’’ has the meaning given 
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