PRESS STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER MICHAEL K. POWELL, 
                           DISSENTING IN PART


     Re:  Personal Communications Industry Association's Broadband Personal Communications
     Services Alliance's Petition for Forbearance For Broadband Personal Communications
     Services                         

     I favor the grant of PCIA's forbearance request for carriers in the Commercial Mobile
Radio Services ("CMRS") with regard to some international tariffs and some of the provisions of
TOCSIA.  These actions, however, are baby steps at a time when noble, decisive leaps of faith are
more appropriate.  The current and foreseeable competitive developments in the CMRS market
and the deregulatory, pro-competitive mandates of the 1996 Telecom Act require more faith in
markets and consumers.  The majority, I believe, denies all other aspects of the subject request to
forbear based on judgments and rationales that raise the bar so high that future and pending
forbearance petitions -- even in the most competitive segment of the telecommunications industry
and in geographic markets that are fully competitive -- do not seem to stand a chance.  I would be
remiss not to be somewhat encouraged by the Order's "commitment to forbear" and the proposals
in the Notice to forbear from additional provisions.  I fear, however, that these are mere words
that cannot live up to the heavy burden imposed by this item on PCIA and future petitioners. 
Accordingly, I will issue a separate statement, dissenting in part from this Order.