FCC Proposes Onerous Wireless Renewal Requirements
Applicants would have to track down and turn over multiple documents – all of which the FCC already has.
Wireless licensees take note: the FCC has proposed changes to its renewal procedures, changes that could mean a lot of extra work for you, with little clear public benefit.
The Commission is proposing to require wireless licensees to submit, along with their renewal applications, copies of all FCC orders finding a violation or apparent violation issued with respect to the licensee during the license term, whether or not the violation(s) (or alleged violation(s)) relate to the license being renewed – and whether or not a violation was ultimately found. That’s right – the FCC wants more copies of its own documents. It also wants a list of petitions to deny filed for any reason against any application submitted by the licensee – again, even applications involving licenses that are not part of the subject renewal application.
But wait. It gets worse.
Not only would the licensee/renewal applicant have to produce its own documents, it would have to track down and turn over a similar universe of documents for each of its “affiliates” – “affiliates” not just in the usual sense of “under common control or management”, but in the very broad sense of sharing facilities, participating in joint venture arrangements, or even just having contractual relationships. (For all the unpleasant details, check out the definition of “affiliate” in Section 1.2110 (c)(5) of the FCC’s rules.) This broad definition normally applies in auctions, to avoid competitive bidding credits going to undeserving entities. It does not fit well in the renewal context, where the point is to assess the qualifications of the licensee, not entities that it can’t control.
Worse, the proposed document production exercise would repeat each time any license held by the applicant and any of its affiliated entities comes up for renewal. Especially for larger entities, the procedure would result in a cascade of repeated document productions, in some cases involving hundreds of affiliates and thousands of licenses. No wonder AT&T and Sprint are worried. This type of due diligence is no cakewalk for smaller entities either, who will have fewer resources to put towards compiling the required information.
Expensive, time-consuming – and probably unlawful. The federal Paperwork Reduction Act (yes, it’s hard to tell, but there really is one) bars governmental agencies from requiring the filing of “unnecessarily duplicative” information otherwise reasonably accessible to the FCC. All of the requested paper is already in the FCC’s own files. If that isn’t unnecessarily duplicative, then nothing is.
After all that, if the Commission finds an applicant’s submission to be “insufficient”, the Commission will deny the application. Don’t ask us what “insufficient” means – the FCC isn’t saying. Apparently, like Justice Stewart in Jacobellis v. Ohio, it will know it when it sees it. Given that people’s livelihoods can be at stake, we expect a better articulation of what the Commission is looking for. We think the Administrative Procedures Act expects the same.
Reply comments about the proposed rule changes are due by August 23. The Commission will accept ex parte communications after that.
You know those pesky penalties the cell phone companies impose when you cancel your service before the contract period has expired? How they keep you from switching providers even when the service turns lousy or the competition offers a better deal? Or a better phone? To folks in the biz, those are referred to as Early Termination Fees (ETFs), and they’re back under the FCC’s microscope.
