[VLM]

> substitute for cell service

47 CFR 97.113 Prohibited transmissions, (a) No amateur station shall transmit: (5) Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services.

The FCC has a perfectly good part 22 service for cell phones.

Or FCC part 73 regulates "old fashioned broadcast radio"

Per 97.1 (a) thru (e) explain the purpose of amateur radio but it boils down to something like a national park, sorta. The purpose of the service is NOT to avoid existing regulation.

"on a regular basis" means experiment as much as possible, for free, non-professionally, as a ham, but if you try to set up a formal cell phone company business for the public just like AT&T, and try to tell the FCC you prefer being regulated under part 97 and pay only $35 for a license, the FCC will be very very very mad at you, wave 47 cfr 97.113(a)(5) at you, then regulate you under part 22.

The FCC has nothing against people building broadcast radio services; but if you try to demand they regulate your public broadcast FM radio service under part 97 rules, the FCC is warning you they will absolutely insist on regulating and charging you under part 73 rules...

[leephillips]

> Communications, on a regular basis, which could reasonably be furnished alternatively through other radio services.

I guess this was the bit I had in mind. It means that one can’t use amateur radio for what a cell phone is normally used for, doesn’t it? Like calling your ham friends to make arrangements for poker night. Or is that the wrong interpretation?

[VLM]

That example is fine its not a regular basis.

Note you can run a business on a cell phone or do financial transactions or speak swear words or all kinds of things common carriers supposedly don't care about but would be banned on ham radio. Also ham radio has no SLA or mandatory 911 access like a phone. Consider... if you are a casino operator and you're trying to book hotel rooms for these guys to play poker night at your casino, that would be forbidden under part 97 because its a business and part 97 isn't for business use.

Its definitely an intent based situation. "Fooling around with radio technology while having convos of a non-commercial personal nature to promote international goodwill and gain radio operating experience" is literally what part 97 was designed for, and fits the poker game example perfectly. "We built a nationwide cellphone network but forgot to budget for FCC licensing fees so we'll reprogram to use ham radio freqs and lie to the FCC and tell them its a part 97 ham radio, while we sell it to the general public as a cell phone" would be quite stunningly illegal because it would be perfectly reasonable to operate a commercial cell phone network under existing FCC regulations for commercial cell phone providers, and its done on a regular basis by the famous big name nationwide cell phone services every day...

[poetaster]

Service. In the sense of serving!? My two FM episodes, 25 years apart, were service. Not for regulatory purposes. To those, we but poor wee pirates were, and remain.