Johnson gets colleagues to help in FCC phone effort

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U.S. Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., recently recruited more than a third of the U.S. Senate to join his effort to fix the problem of dropped, incomplete and poor quality long-distance phone calls in rural America, according to a news release from his office.

Johnson is also pushing Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski to take further action.

Last month, Johnson held a meeting for Senate offices to learn about the call completion problems and invited Wall resident Denny Law, the general manager and CEO of Golden West Telecommunications, to help emphasize the significance of the problems.

“The bottom line is that folks in rural America are not getting a fair shake, and I am fighting to ensure they have the same access to quality service as individuals in more populated areas of the country,” Johnson said in a news release. The release said Johnson first learned about the issue from a small Canistota business.

Johnson led a letter to the FCC in January regarding the call completion problems. In February, the FCC issued a declaratory ruling on Rural Call Completion Issues that reiterated and clarified the federal prohibitions against blocking, choking, reducing or restricting telephone traffic.

“While this action was a step in the right direction, these problems are continuing to occur at an alarming rate,” said the news release from Johnson’s office.

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