WASHINGTON-U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas chose to trick rather than treat the Federal Communications Commission Oct. 31 when he wrote “application denied” on a request made by that agency to vacate the current stay of certain inter-connection rules issued by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit on Oct. 13.
Both the judge and FCC Chairman Reed Hundt issued no comment on the decision, although the FCC will submit the same application to Thomas’ colleague on the bench Ruth Bader Ginsburg. AT&T Corp. headed a group of carriers that has resubmitted an application to overturn the stay, this time to Justice John Paul Stevens; Thomas also had turned down the original application.
At press time, the FCC continued to debate adoption of amended rules regarding the shared costs of microwave relocation. The item had been scheduled for a vote at the commission’s monthly meeting Oct. 23, but was pulled from the agenda just minutes before the meeting began.
Apparently, there were some last-minute questions regarding a proposed change in the voluntary and mandatory negotiation periods between personal communications services licensees and incumbent microwave users, and the commission decided to work out the details before it vote on the item.
Although FCC staffers would not confirm this, sources close to the issue believe the commissioners were working out details that would change the negotiation period between licensees and incumbents from two years voluntary/one year mandatory to just the opposite, one year voluntary/two years mandatory. If this is the case, UTC spokesman Sean Stokes said his utilities constituency would be able to live with the changes. “It’s still roughly the same timeframe,” he said.
Commissioners also may be addressing what would happen in the fourth and fifth years if additional microwave links needed to be relocated. There probably would be no voluntary negotiation period; instead, there could be a one-year or two-year mandatory period.
“Some timing issues on voluntary relocation in the D, E and F blocks were brought to our attention at the last minute,” said Rudy Baca, counsel to Commissioner James Quello. “There is nothing wrong with the docket; it just needed a little more thinking.” Baca said commissioners were “making every effort” to vote the docket last week.
Mark Crosby, president of the Industrial Telecommunications Association, which runs one of two microwave-relocation clearinghouses, said there was “a lot of heat” to get this item out, and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau had been prepared to present its findings on schedule. Mark Golden of the Personal Communications Industry Association told RCR there were no substantive disagreements regarding the docket.
