HOUSE JOINT MEMORIAL 57

47th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2005

INTRODUCED BY

Patricia A. Lundstrom

A JOINT MEMORIAL

SUPPORTING THE USE OF THE STATE RURAL UNIVERSAL SERVICE FUND FOR THE FIRST YEAR OF OPERATION OF AN INCUMBENT LOCAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS COMPANY WHILE WAITING FOR FEDERAL RURAL SUPPORT.

     WHEREAS, it is in the public interest that all New Mexico households have access to basic and advanced telecommunications services for personal and homeland security and for health, education and economic development purposes; and

     WHEREAS, in excess of sixty percent of Navajo households do not have access to the most basic telecommunications service due to the cost of copper and fiber optic systems in remote areas within the state as well as due to difficulties in acquiring right-of-way permits on tribal and federal bureau of Indian affairs lands; and

     WHEREAS, Sacred Wind communications, incorporated, a telecommunications company headquartered in New Mexico, is negotiating the acquisition of other telecommunications companies' facilities and customers on the Navajo Nation reservation and on federal bureau of Indian affairs allotment lands and has designed fixed wireless local loop radio systems to reach hundreds more Navajo homes, thereby overcoming many cost and right-of-way issues encountered by traditional landline companies; and

     WHEREAS, the federal communications commission makes available universal service funding for rural telecommunications companies that serve remote rural areas where the cost of providing telecommunications services is inordinately high, but requires pursuant to Federal Communications Commission Rule 54-305 that a telecommunications company be operational for one year before becoming eligible for federal communications commission support; and

     WHEREAS, a New Mexico successor telecommunications company dedicated to serving the Navajo people will not have the resources to operate at a loss and pay salaries for one year when its costs of service far exceed its income from low-income families; and

     WHEREAS, the public regulation commission manages a state rural universal service fund whose purpose is to "maintain and support at affordable rates those public telecommunications services as are determined by the commission"; and

     WHEREAS, the state rural universal service fund has not been used by any rural telecommunications carrier for over a dozen years and now holds a balance of over two million dollars ($2,000,000); and

     WHEREAS, the state rural universal service fund can be used to cover in part the high operational costs of Sacred Wind communications, incorporated, until it receives federal communications commission support after its first year;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the public regulation commission be requested to consider the use of state rural universal service funds to support the first year of a successor telecommunications company that is established to serve high- cost tribal communities as an incumbent provider of basic local exchange services; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be transmitted to the members of the public regulation commission, the Navajo Nation telecommunications regulatory commission, the president of the Navajo Nation, the Navajo Nation eastern agency and Shiprock agency, the Navajo eastern regional office of the federal bureau of Indian affairs and the office of the New Mexico attorney general.

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