WASHINGTON-A notice of proposed rulemaking recently released by the Federal Communications Commission seeks to abolish finder’s preference rules in the 220-222 MHz band in light of the commission’s almost certain move to geographic licensing and auctioning private land mobile channels.
The FCC also wants comments on whether such preferences should be eliminated for private frequencies in the 470-512 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands.
The FCC wants to avoid the chance that some incumbents may get channels for free when others may have to pay for theirs. “We believe that the alternative-to continue the finder’s preference program within the context of a geographic licensing approach-would run counter to the goals underlying our new licensing approach because the geographic area licensee would potentially lose opportunities to provide a uniform service throughout the area.”
One proposal pre-destined for heavy comment is the commission’s plan to “retain the discretion to dismiss pending finder’s preference requests for any services in any frequency bands in which we decide to eliminate the … program as a result of this rulemaking proceeding.” Those licensees having such applications on file would not be substantially harmed, the FCC wrote, because they will be able to apply for other channels once they become available for licensing. For those 220-222 MHz licensees, satisfaction would be almost immediate because of geographic licensing.
“I’m very concerned that the FCC wants to retain the right to dismiss long-standing applications,” said attorney Alan Tilles of Meyer, Faller, Weismann and Rosenberg, who represents the Personal Communications Industry Association. He has clients that have had finder’s preference applications languishing at the FCC for more than two years. Tilles added that “it seems appropriate” to eliminate such preferences going forward, if the concept of geographic licensing is adopted.
Also expressing mixed feelings about the NPRM was Liz Sachs of Lukas, McGowan, Nace and Gutierrez, counsel to the American Mobile Telecommunications Association. “We’ve got clients on both sides. I’ve seen so many abuses of the system that I’m delighted to see that it could be gone,” she said. “However, I always have concerns when the FCC tries to change the rules after the fact.”
Sachs would like to see pending applications decided on merit rather than being dismissed out of hand. “People have paid money” to submit a preference, she added. “It’s not anyone’s fault that they’ve sat (at the FCC) this long.”
Comments are due Nov. 18; reply comments are due Dec. 3.
