President Trump Signs Tester’s 13th Bill into Law

Senator’s Improving Rural Call Completion Act Improves Phone Service in Frontier Montana

(U.S. Senate)- President Donald Trump signed U.S. Senator Jon Tester’s 13th bill into law, which will result in improved phone service across rural Montana.

Tester’s Improving Rural Call Quality and Reliability Act will #ConnectMT by directing the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to require out of state companies that transmit phone calls to register with the FCC and establish basic quality standards. Tester took up this issue after a 2012 study found that one out of every five calls made to rural areas via landline are still delayed, dropped, or disrupted.

“Across rural Montana and America, some folks are unable to rely on something as basic as a landline to call their family or run a business,” Tester said. “It’s important to me to bring Congress together to hold out-of-state phone providers accountable so Montana families and small businesses can get the reliable service they deserve.”

Tester is a long-time advocate for rural call completion, having first introduced this bill back in 2015. He pushed the FCC to address this issue long before that.

Tester was recently appointed to the Senate Commerce Committee, where he is a member of the Subcommittee on Communications, Technology, Innovation, and the Internet, which has jurisdiction over issues of connectivity and call completion.

This bill is another step in Tester’s #ConnectMT initiative, which seeks to connect folks across Big Sky Country-both online and in person-by investing in Montana’s roads, bridges, broadband, wifi, cellular and landline infrastructures.

Tester’s other 12 bills that Trump has signed into law are:

 

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