SUMMARY

Motorola Satellite Communications, Inc. ("Motorola") and Iridium, U.S.,L.P. ("Iridium North America" or collectively "MSC/INA") submit these reply comments to the Federal-State Joint Board on Universal Service in the above-captioned proceeding.

Collectively, these companies will be responsible for the bulk distribution of space segment capacity to service providers in the United States and Canada who, in turn, will provide IRIDIUM Mobile Satellite Services ("MSS") to the general public.

Motorola and Iridium North America strongly support the universal service goals established by Congress and the Commission. However, Congress has allowed the FCC to exclude bulk providers of space segment capacity from universal service contribution obligations through its definitions of "telecommunications carrier" and "telecommunications services." These definitions continue the statutory scheme first created by Congress in 1993 that permits the FCC to determine whether providers of fixed satellite or mobile satellite space segment should be subject to CMRS and common carrier regulatory treatment. The definitions of "telecommunications service" and "common carrier" service are synonymous and permit the Commission to find that bulk space segment capacity providers are not telecommunications carriers or common carriers.

The FCC has repeatedly concluded, both in the context of its Big and Little LEO rulemaking proceedings and in its licensing decisions, that it would extend non-common carrier treatment to "any entity that sells or leases space segment capacity, to the extent that they are not providing CMRS directly to end users."[1] The Commission has expressly recognized that the IRIDIUM System will be marketed through a wholesale supplier of satellite transmission capacity to service providers through U.S. gateways and that this does not constitute common carriage or a CMRS offering.[2]

While Congress also granted the Commission the discretion to impose universal service contribution obligations on "providers of interstate telecommunications," the Joint Board should recommend that such action is not in the public interest. The Commission need not impose universal service contribution obligations upon bulk space segment providers in order to preserve and advance its universal service policies. It can readily impose these obligations on MSS service providers that will be providing service directly to the public and thus qualify as telecommunications carriers or providers of telecommunications subject to Section 254(d)'s contribution requirements.

Motorola and Iridium North America, therefore, urge that the Joint Board recommend to the Commission that providers of Fixed Satellite and Mobile Satellite Service bulk space segment capacity should not be subject to the universal service contribution obligations of Section 254 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996.