Commission looks to update its methodology for calculating regulatory fees, but proposes a possible alternative approach to cushion the blow this year. One of the time-honored rites of spring – at least at the FCC – is the release, every April or May, of a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking setting out the schedule of regulatory fees the Commission thinks it may impose on all regulatees come August-September. Historically, we here at CommLawBlog have tried to be Johnny-on-the-spot in letting our readers know the fees that have been proposed, even though the fees that eventually adopted (usually in July) may vary here and...

Media Bureau provides MX applicants one last opportunity to avoid going to auction. If you’ve still got one or more FM translator applications pending from the infamous 2003 window, listen up! The Media Bureau has opened a 62-day “Settlement Period” – up to and including July 22, 2013 – during which applicants with mutually exclusive (MX) applications may attempt to resolve their differences through engineering amendments or settlements. For those of you who may have forgotten exactly which (if any) of your applications may still be alive and kicking, the Bureau has provided a list of the apps that the Bureau thinks are...

An expensive reminder that the FCC is still policing the long distance industry. If you’ve been thinking that the FCC doesn’t care about “slamming” anymore, think again. The Commission has proposed a multi-million dollar fine against long distance service provider Advantage Telecommunications Corp. (ATC) for slamming violations. Which raises two obvious questions: (1) Is there still such a thing as a long distance service provider? and (2) “What did ATC do to deserve a $7.6 million fine? Answer (1): Yes, long distance service providers still exist. There remains a niche market for standalone (i.e., unaffiliated with your local phone company) long distance carriers serving consumers with...

Proposals for satellite and space operations call for new commingling of spectrum operations. This Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) looks to alter the way in which certain spectrum is to be shared between the government and private users.  At first glance it is about as tedious and picky as anything coming out of the FCC. But it may signal the beginning of the end of a basic tenet of U.S. spectrum management. Radio spectrum is allocated separately for federal and non-federal use. Take a look at the official...

FCC announces procedures for waiver requests by noncommercial broadcasters. The time has come, yet again, for broadcasters to respond to a natural catastrophe with their characteristic humanity, offering help wherever and whenever possible. As the horrific stories and images from tornado-devastated Oklahoma – and particularly the community of Moore – make their way out of the storm’s heartless swath, broadcast stations may want to undertake fund-raising efforts to support relief efforts. The FCC clearly does not want to do anything to discourage such laudable humanitarian impulses. However, rules are rules – and the Commission’s rules (Sections 73.503(d) for radio and 73.621(e) for TV) generally...

Rulemaking petition denied on grounds relating to auction, interference and frequency coordination. The Wireless and International Bureaus and the Office of Engineering and Technology (Bureaus) have denied a 2008 petition by the Utilities Telecom Council and Winchester Cator, LLC that asked the Commission to open the 14.0-14.5 GHz band for terrestrial point-to-point and point-to-multipoint communications. The requested allocation would have served critical infrastructure industries, including electric utilities and emergency responders. Other services would have been permitted on a preemptible basis. The Bureaus disagreed with the petition’s argument that the band could be licensed without an auction. They also had concerns about interference into...

[Blogmeister’s Note: We haven’t heard much about porn copyright trolls in a couple of years, but a recent decision by a federal judge in California caught our eye. The judge slammed a troll operation, and he did it with flair – his opinion opens with a quote from a Star Trek movie (“The Wrath of Khan”) and proceeds to riff off the Star Trek theme throughout its 11 pages. Our colleague Tony Lee volunteered to report on the decision because – or so we thought – he had been involved with porn copyright trolls in the past (defending against them, he assures us). What...

Proposed law looks to address multiple aspects of TV in the MVPD era, including bundling, broadcast abandonment and blackouts. True to his reputation as a maverick, Arizona Senator John McCain has authored a bill seemingly designed to please nobody, while arguably disserving just about everybody. Dubbed the “Television Consumer Freedom Act of 2013”, it consists of clumsily crafted legislative language that mashes together in one bill three disparate and contentious aspects of the current video delivery system. In only one of those three areas does McCain’s proposal come to remotely practical terms with the problem...

New Media Bureau policy opens door for reduced fines for first-time violators of some paperwork rules. The FCC’s enforcement actions often leave us shaking our heads wondering if the bureaucracy recognizes the challenges faced in real life by those it regulates. But occasionally there are rays of hope.  Case in point: the Media Bureau has revised its policy for enforcing certain paperwork obligations against student-staffed noncommercial educational (NCE) radio broadcast stations. The revised policy provides an opportunity for such stations to avoid crushing forfeitures which could end up shutting the stations down. Last July, we blogged...

A bit of Fletcher Heald family news. Our colleague, Davina Sashkin, and her hubby, Bill Schreiner, welcomed William A. Schreiner, III, into their family – and the greater FHH fold – this past week. Mom and young Liam are doing well.  Liam is pictured, angelically asleep, at left. (Tip to Davina and Bill: don’t get used to this.) We here in the CommLawBlog bunker wish them all the best. And Liam’s arrival reminds us that today is Mother’s Day. Permit us to diverge slightly from our usual FCC-centric mission to provide this public service announcement. If you haven’t already done so, we recommend that you turn off...

If you have the vague sense that you might like to file comments in response to the bizarre invitation for comments relative to the FCC’s indecency policies, but you’re still trying to figure out exactly what those policies are in the first place, you're in luck. The General Counsel’s office and the Enforcement Bureau have extended the deadlines. Comments are now due by June 19, 2013 and reply comments by July 18. Unfortunately, the public notice announcing the extensions does not shed any more light on the indecency inquiry. As previously reported here, the inquiry posed on April Fool’s Day is, at best, cryptic...

Antennas would use directional pointing rules to avoid interfering with satellites. The FCC is looking to expand the use of wireless services, particularly in-flight Wi-Fi, on aircraft traveling over the contiguous United States.  In a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), the FCC has proposed the establishment of a new air-ground mobile broadband service in the 14.0-14.5 GHz band. The proposal was first advanced by Qualcomm, which hopes to augment the recently authorized (just last December) satellite-based connections to aircraft with a nationwide network of air-to-ground stations that would allow plane passengers to connect more easily and cheaply to the Internet. Unlike satellite...