WASHINGTON-While Federal Communications Commission Chairman Reed Hundt ratchets up pressure on local governments to break antenna siting gridlock around the country, regulators are working behind the scenes to craft guidelines to govern health-related siting disputes.
The initiative is said by one key agency official to be holding up a ruling on petitions challenging the new hybrid radiofrequency radiation exposure standard because the proposal will be a spinoff of the RF reconsideration order.
The new RF standard tightens exposure limits, though there are differences among industry, environmentalists and consumers over whether new RF guidelines protect against potential thermal and non-thermal bioeffects from RF energy, or just against thermal effects.
The Environmental Protection Agency recently said the new FCC RF guidelines provides “adequate protection of public health.”
A decision on the RF standard petitions is expected by late March. Two weeks later, a technical bulletin that provides RF exposure compliance guidelines for wireless carriers is expected to be issued.
“We do not intend to dictate to any community where or how to permit the construction of facilities, but federal law prohibits local governments from imposing bars to providing personal wireless services,” Hundt wrote Mayor Aldo Vagnozzi of Farmington Hills, Mich., late last month.
Hundt sent letters to 33 other local officials expressing concern over moratoria and requesting information on the delays.
Antenna siting has become a huge thorn in the side of the emerging personal communications services industry. The wireless industry estimates the PCS buildout will require 100,000 antennas be installed throughout the nation.
The Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association has petitioned the FCC to use more muscle to shake siting moratoria loose, but FCC officials are said to doubt the agency’s legal standing and so are not rushing to take strong action.
Siting delays are due to aesthetic, health and safety, property value and other concerns of citizens.
In Congress, House telecommunications subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.) is expected to hold an antenna siting hearing this month.
The 1996 telecom act forbids state and local government officials from denying siting requests solely on the basis of RF exposure if the wireless carrier complies with federal RF guidelines.
In an interview with RCR last week, Hundt left no doubt who he believes should be calling the shots on antenna siting.
“I think an awful lot of cities are simply wondering how they’re supposed to deal with the problems, and they would love to borrow somebody else’s solution,” said Hundt.
“We are in a unique position,” he added, “of knowing more about what all the different cities and states are doing than any one of them does.”
Lobbyists for cities and counties did not return calls for comment.
For policymakers and industry, antenna siting is a tightrope walk. If they push too hard, U.S. mayors and other state/local government officials could dig in more out of resentment. If federal policymakers don’t press the issue hard enough, PCS carriers could suffer economic harm, and the public might be denied benefits of a competitive wireless environment.
Already, the FCC has become entangled in litigation over implementing certain interconnection provisions of the new telecom law because of what states and local telephone companies see as heavy-handed federal regulation.
On other issues, Hundt said he still believes auctions have been a big success despite recent payment defaults by winning bidders (which the FCC waived) and funding problems on Wall Street. He did voice opposition to Congress dictating dates for spectrum auctions as it did for the budget-driven 2.3 GHz auction. But Hundt said he does not support holding back spectrum from the market.
The FCC chairman said he is not enamored with spectrum lease fees in lieu of auctions for private wireless licensing, but added he is open to industry ideas. Wireless Telecommunications Bureau Chief Michele Farquhar said her staff is working on a plan to implement spectrum lease fees, given the likelihood of Congress expanding auction authority this year.
Regarding FCC restructuring, Hundt insisted that changes would elevate the prestige of engineering, rather than downgrade it as some agency engineers fear. Hundt, according to sources, wants to overhaul-possibly eliminate-the Office of Engineering and Technology as part of that effort.
Hundt didn’t dismiss the idea of creating a large think tank within the FCC that all commissioners and bureaus could draw on. He said he opposed Commissioner Rachelle Chong’s (and AT&T Corp.’s) suggestion of eliminating the 40-megahertz commercial wireless spectrum cap for fear that doing so would undermine competition.
On spectrum reform, Hundt was particularly outspoken. He was recently overruled by the other three commissioners on the question of whether to adopt a highly deregulatory spectrum policy statement.
“Almost every service rule ever written by the FCC was a waste of time and had to be revised or repealed in practice, so why have them?” asked Hundt. “Unless the rule guards against interference, there doesn’t seem to be any reason for it. We should give people full flexible use of the spectrum to deliver any service they want. They always come later and ask for that anyhow and, we always-after years of delay and hundreds of thousands of dollars of attorney time being spent by the private sector-give them what they’re asking for. So why not give them flexibility from the beginning?”
