About RCA

RCA was founded in 1992 by nine rural and regional wireless carriers as a carrier centric organization.  Since its founding, RCA has grown to become the nation's leading association for competitive wireless providers serving all areas of the United States. Today, the licensed service area of RCA's nearly 100 carrier members covers more than 80 percent of the nation.

Headquartered in Washington, DC, RCA advocates on behalf of our members’ interests and works to educate policymakers on the key issues that impact our members’ ability to compete, survive, and thrive.  Currently these issues include automatic data roaming, interoperability throughout the 700 MHz spectrum, Universal Service Fund reform, spectrum policy and licensing issues and handset exclusivity, among others.

Advocating before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the White House and Congress, RCA works to ensure that our members’ voices and views are heard not only by policymakers but also by the media, third parties and throughout the entire wireless industry.

The RCA membership consists of three types of members:

1. Carrier Member – A carrier member must be the operator of a CMRS license providing “two-way” wireless communications service, and together with its affiliates, not have more than 10 million subscribers.
2. Associate Member – An associate member is a company that provides goods or services to the wireless telecommunications industry.
3. Affiliate Member – An affiliate member includes those companies that operate or own an interest in a CMRS license but do not qualify as a carrier member.  This may be because they exceed the subscriber limit in their markets or because they are a limited partner.

To date, the RCA membership is comprised of over 100 carrier members,150 associate members and a dozen affiliate members.  The Association is led by a Board of Directors comprised of 25 carrier and associate members and CEOs.