Recently, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) treated Puerto Rico and its elected representatives with a marked lack of respect. It maintained that Puerto Ricans do not deserve the same level of access to telecommunications services as that enjoyed by the rest of the U.S. populace. This is wrong, and it has got to change.

Congress created the FCC with the clear purpose of assuring that "all the people of the United States" should have comparable access to telecommunications services "without discrimination based on race, color, religion, national origin, or sex."

In fulfillment of this fundamental right, Congress directed the FCC to allocate funds in order to ensure universal access to telecommunications services. And Congress specifically required the FCC to provide the financial resources to guarantee equal telecommunications service quality in the "island zones" like Puerto Rico, and to make them available and affordable.

Nevertheless, the FCC turned a cold shoulder on this obligation and on Puerto Rico. The FCC decided not to budget the necessary funds to guarantee that Puerto Rico would have equality of universal cable telephone services. To the contrary, the Commission stated that having affordable cable telephone services is not important for Puerto Rico because, in the opinion of the FCC, we can get along with cellular services. What the FCC neglected to say is that, while it discriminates against Puerto Rico with regard to cable telephone services, it guarantees federal funds and access to all varieties of telecommunications services to all the other parts of the United States.

We Puerto Ricans have the same right to receive the support Congress ordered the FCC to provide for all United States residents. In spite of the advances evident in other parts of the United States, many people in Puerto Rico still do not get basic telephone services, nor do they get Internet service. In fact, Puerto Rico has the largest population without the services of cable telecommunications – a shocking number of 200,000 people and around 200 communities. Furthermore, many of these communities lack access to cellular telephone services because of the weak coverage in the interior mountains.

The same day on which the FCC turned its back on Puerto Ricans, it gave substantial increases in funds to the cable systems in Wyoming, even though Puerto Rico has seven times the population of that state, and though 40 percent of the Puerto Rican population lives below the poverty line.

It is time to confront the FCC with this injustice against Puerto Ricans. We are not alone in this struggle. Our representatives in Washington, including Congress members José E. Serrano, Nydia Velazquez, and Luis V. Gutierrez, and Resident Commissioner Pedro R. Pierluisi, are working hard to demand that the FCC treat Puerto Ricans with equality, as the law and justice require.

Rafael A. Fantauzzi is the president and CEO of the National Puerto Rican

Coalition, Inc., a non-partisan, non-profit organization located in Washington, DC.