Pursestrings Update: New Application Fees Won't Go Into Effect Until February 18, Maybe
A couple of days ago we reported that the new application fees adopted back in September had, at long last, become effective as of January 29. Our report was based on an order that appeared in the Federal Register on January 29 which specified that the new fees were, in fact, effective on January 29.
We suspected that something might be amiss, though, when the automatic fee calculator in CDBS continued to demand the former (i.e., lower) fees, rather than the newly effective “adjusted” fees, but that could just have been a problem with the CDBS administration.
Now the Commission has indicated that, despite the Federal Register directive, the effective date for the new fees will not be until February 18, 2009. We say that this was “indicated”, rather than “announced”, because the information showed up without fanfare (let alone public notice) on a page deep in the bowels of the FCC’s website. There the Commission posted revised Fee Filing Guides for the various services, with the link to each of the Guides labeled “Effective 2/18/09”. So it looks like February 18 is the official date.
But wait.
On the front page of each of the Fee Filing Guides is a notation which reads “This is an unofficial compilation of the radio services and requests for FCC actions that are subject to fees.” Unofficial? Does that mean that the Federal Register date – which sure looks official, being in the Federal Register and all – supersedes the Guides? We’re looking into this and will post the answers if and when we get any.
