Consumer Telecommunications Act of 1983

Consumer Telecommunications Act of 1983 - Amends the Communications Act of 1934 to direct the Federal Communications Commission to establish a system of charges to: (1) compensate exchange carriers (carriers that provide telephone exchange service on a universal basis) for exchange access (the provision of services and facilities for interexchange communication); and (2) reform the system of jurisdictional separation of property and expenses. Declares the purposes of such system to be to: (1) achieve equal treatment among all interexchange carriers with regard to exchange access; (2) compensate exchange carriers for the costs of distributing interexchange transmissions; (3) continue the universal availability of basic communications service provided by exchange carriers at reasonable charges; (4) assure that exchange access costs are determined in a manner that ensures public accountability; (5) achieve flexibility in accommodating changes in technology and market conditions; and (6) establish incentives for investment and technological development and avoid uneconomic incentives that discourage reliance by interexchange carriers upon exchange carriers as distributors of interexchange transmissions. Directs the Commission to: (1) ascertain the costs incurred by exchange carriers to provide exchange access; and (2) apportion such costs between exchange (local) service and interexchange (long distance) service in a manner that ensures the universal availability of basic communications service at reasonable rates. Directs the Commission to ensure that the costs of non-traffic-sensitive facilities used to provide exchange access are allocated to interexchange services based on their relative use of such facilities; and (2) the costs allocated to interexchange service are recovered from interexchange carriers and customers of interexchange services. Establishes the Universal Service Fund to subsidize and thereby ensure basic communications service in rural or remote areas at reasonable charges. Directs the Commission to establish practices to determine amounts to be contributed to the Fund by interexchange carriers and customers. Entitles to Fund payments any exchange carrier whose statewide costs for exchange service per customer line, or for connecting lines to interexchange carriers, exceed 115 percent of the national average costs. Permits an eligible carrier to recover up to 60 percent of such excess costs from the Fund. Authorizes a State commission to require any exchange carrier to lease and maintain on request a single basic one-line telephone instrument to any subscriber in such State for a tariff that includes all costs of providing and maintaining such instrument. Entitles any person who makes a written request to: (1) receive a nonexclusive license to any patent held for a dominant carrier upon paying a reasonable royalty; and (2) use any patent held by a common carrier for purposes of interconnecting with such carrier's teminal equipment or transmission services. Requires the tariffs for such services to include a reasonable royalty for the use of such services. Requires that technical information relating to such patents be provided to such persons for a reasonable charge, except that such person may be required to agree not to use such technical information for products not manufactured in the United States. Requires any such royalties derived from any patent held for a dominant carrier to benefit common carriers, exchange common carriers, and their ratepayers to the extent that such entities bore the costs of developing or acquiring such patent. Authorizes the Commission and each State commission to: (1) ensure that the customers of regulated communications services do not bear any costs of entry into or participation in unregulated markets by common carriers or exchange carriers; and (2) prevent any anticompetitive practice by any carrier.

Written by analysts at the Congressional Research Service and published on Congress.gov, not by Civibrief. Summarized at the "Introduced in House" stage on June 21, 1983. It describes the bill, it is not the legal text.

Every answer above is assembled from this measure's own record on Congress.gov and from published counts of what Congress has passed before. Civibrief does not predict outcomes and takes no position on any measure.