The Wireless Telecommunications Bureau is looking out for the interests of deserving tower owners
In a letter ruling released this week, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announced that antenna structure owners who use the Hark Tower Systems, Inc. lighting monitoring system are now eligible for expedited processing of requests for waiver of the quarterly inspection requirement under Section 17.42(b) of the Rules.
Several tower lighting monitoring systems, including the Eagle Monitoring System by Flash Technology and the TowerSentry Monitoring System, as well as the Hark system (as we reported in an earlier post) have been deemed by the Commission to offer “sufficiently robust monitoring of the control devices, indicators and alarm systems so as to render quarterly inspections unnecessary.” In light of this, the WTB has adopted an expedited process whereby a tower owner using one of these systems may seek a waiver of the quarterly inspection requirement by certifying:
1. that its towers are monitored by one of the approved montioring systems (i.e., Hark, Eagle, or TowerSentry), under the process described in the Commission’s 2007 ATC/GSI Waiver Order; AND
2. that it maintains a means to receive notifications of failures from the monitoring system so that the tower owner may readily carry out its duties under Part 17 of the Rules.
The certification must be made under penalty of perjury by a company officer (or person of similar responsibility) with actual knowledge of these facts. This certification and waiver request must be submitted in hard copy to the FCC as usual (no CDBS or ULS e-filing alternative is currently available), but should also be emailed for quicker processing to part17@fcc.gov.
We note that this waiver process does not offer complete inspection requirement relief – towers must still be inspected annually.
