With the whirl of the holiday season upon us, most broadcasters rightly thought they could put off looking ahead to the next license renewal cycle until 2019. Au contraire, says the FCC, which began sending out blast emails to certain radio licensees on December 6, warning that FCC internal audits have revealed that many stations’ … Continue Reading
Before Thanksgiving, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation aimed at decreasing the number of unwanted robocalls. The TRACED Act would expand FCC authority under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (“TCPA”), empower the FCC to mandate call authentication rules for voice service providers to cut down on caller ID spoofing, and create an interagency working … Continue Reading
Let’s play some word association. If we say “Deadlines”, you might answer “Scary.” Hence, the reason we’re publishing our November and December FCC deadlines post on Halloween. Only, unlike the ghouls and goblins you may see on the streets tonight, these are real! Please note that the list is NOT exclusive, so there may be others. … Continue Reading
Deadlines! Get your deadlines here! With summer in the rearview mirror, it’s time to get back to work and look ahead to the rest of the year. Here’s a list of FCC-related broadcast and telecom deadlines. Please note that the list is NOT exclusive, so there may be others. For help meeting these deadlines or … Continue Reading
The FCC issued a Public Notice activating its Disaster Information Reporting Service (DIRS) as Hurricane Florence, a Category 4 storm, is set to make landfall in the Carolinas and Mid-Atlantic regions causing catastrophic flooding, high winds, and heavy rains. Broadcasters and other communications providers in those regions are encouraged to voluntarily supply certain filings with … Continue Reading
While we all hit the beach for the last time this Labor Day weekend, the FCC today released the final listing of regulatory fees for 2018 and their due dates. Although the FCC has not yet activated the Fee Filer system for 2018 regulatory fees, we expect that to happen very soon. Fees must be … Continue Reading
Do you know what FCC telecom and broadcast deadlines are approaching? We do. Time to mark up your calendars so you’re not late on these important deadlines. Call FHH at (703) 812-0400 if you have trouble meeting these deadlines or need assistance. Telecom Deadlines: August 3, 2018 – Quarterly 911 Live Call Data Reports – Nationwide CMRS … Continue Reading
The United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit today dismissed challenges to the FCC’s April 2017 decision to reinstate the UHF Discount. That discount allows broadcast television station owners to count only 50 percent of households served by UHF stations when calculating a station’s compliance with the FCC’s national ownership cap, which limits … Continue Reading
When FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly published a blog post back in January that called for the reexamination of the Children’s Programming Requirements, we questioned whether the requirements would still exist in the near future. We can now report that we are not likely to see the complete demise of the FCC’s Children Programming Requirements (colloquially … Continue Reading
Just when you think you have a beat on the Supreme Court, they always seem to surprise you. Take the decision issued in Carpenter v. U.S., issued last Friday, June 22. The court held that a judicial warrant, based on probable cause, is required before law enforcement officials can call up your cellphone company and … Continue Reading
Not long from now, your new phone will come with 5G mobile data service: dizzyingly fast with near-zero latency (delay). But don’t expect service everywhere. 5G needs high frequencies for its high data capacity; but the physics of those frequencies means the range will be short, a few hundred meters at most. This will require … Continue Reading
We amateur drone pilots are well schooled in the dangers. We don’t fly close to airports, near power lines, or anywhere in the no-drone-zone that stretches across the entirety of the Washington D.C. region (including, sadly, our own CommLawBlog rooftop deck, which would otherwise be a great place to fly). But we don’t worry much … Continue Reading
A summary of the FCC’s proposed rule changes regarding procedures to resolve complaints of interference caused by FM Translators to primary stations was published in the Federal Register today. That event established July 6 as the deadline for initial comments and August 6 as the deadline for replies. The FCC proposals are designed to streamline … Continue Reading
Fifty-years ago this fall, as a bewildered University of Oregon freshman, I showed up for an orientation session for newbies who wanted to be on the air at what was then student-programmed KWAX. The station’s chief engineer introduced us to the program log, told us how to take meter readings (required every half hour as … Continue Reading
As we pack up our swimming trunks and beach umbrellas for the unofficial start of summer, the FCC this week issued its 2018 Regulatory Fee Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). This NPRM puts in motion the process for payment of regulatory fees which will likely be due sometime in September. For the most part, the … Continue Reading
The FCC at its May Open Meeting adopted a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) proposing reforms to the Commission’s current procedures used to resolve complaints of interference caused by FM translator stations. As the NPRM recites, the FM translator service was instituted in 1970 as a way to improve reception of FM radio stations in … Continue Reading
Those bright, colorful LED signs are up everywhere. They advertise gasoline prices, announce church services, and promote specials at the dry-cleaner. You can program them to say anything you want, with eye-catching animation. And sometimes they cause interference to radio communications. Wait — LED signs? CommLawBlog readers know all about radio interference from well pumps and fluorescent lights and (of course) bitcoin … Continue Reading
Mark your calendars because the time has come: as of June 11 the FCC announced yesterday that its Open Internet rules (better known as “net neutrality”) will cease and new FCC rules governing the Internet will take effect. This was the latest in a series of procedural milestones in the net neutrality debate. In a … Continue Reading
Radio spectrum and real estate have a lot in common. They’re not making any more of either; and for both, location really does matter. “Location,” for spectrum, means frequency. Much as different real estate locations best serve different purposes, different technological applications work best in different frequency ranges. Like prime downtown addresses, though, all the … Continue Reading
Satellites – even small ones – need radio spectrum. Without radios to communicate, a satellite is just a hunk of metal and plastic in the sky. The first man-made satellite, the Russian Sputnik in 1957, carried nothing but a radio transmitter. It sent a sequence of beeps that said: I am here. Early communications satellites … Continue Reading
Earlier this year, the President signed into federal law the Kari’s Law Act of 2017, a measure aimed at ensuring multi-line telephone systems (MLTS) users can directly access emergency personnel by dialing 911 without first dialing an access code. As you’ve probably observed, the passage of this new federal law was somewhat bittersweet, as the … Continue Reading
Callers placing long distance calls to rural areas have, at times, experienced difficulties in having their calls go through. This occurs most often in rural areas where the costs incurred by long distance providers have generally been higher than in non-rural areas. In 2012, the FCC issued a declaratory ruling which determined that carriers that … Continue Reading
Robocalls – everyone has strong feelings about them. In many cases they serve a useful function, but they are often unwanted and/or fraudulent, and they are the largest source of consumer complaints to the FCC. In response, the FCC in 2015 issued a Declaratory Ruling and Order intended to broaden the number of calls subject … Continue Reading
(But Doesn’t Offer Much Explanation as to Details or Guidance for Future Acceptable Action) On April 10, the FCC released Orders and associated Consent Decrees resolving investigations into alleged violations of the site registration and/or pre-construction environmental review procedures by Sprint and Mobilitie. In the past, the Commission has made it clear that it means … Continue Reading
