President Clinton last week signed legislation giving wireless and other high-tech firms limited protection against lawsuits for year-2000 computer problems. The issue threatened to become a political liability for Vice President Gore, who needs continued high-tech backing in his bid for the presidency in 2000.
Reps. Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), George Gekas (R-Penn.) and Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) introduced legislation to require the Federal Communications Commission to articulate rules for license transfers. The bill stems from complaints by Commissioner Harold Furchtgott-Roth about the lack of procedural clarity governing the assignment of wireless permits in telecom mergers. Legislation is pending in the Senate to restrict and speed up FCC merger review.
A federal appeals court here declined to overturn a Federal Communications Commission ruling on extended buildout deadlines for specialized mobile radio licenses sold by an application mill shut down by the Federal Trade Commission in 1994. The petitioners, which included court-appointed receiver Daniel R. Goodman, Chadmoore Wireless Group Inc., SMR Services Inc. and others, argued that FCC construction rules for affected dispatch licenses were arbitrary and capricious. The three-member court panel did not address the merits of their claims because only one of them who sought review in time lacks the legal standing to challenge the FCC decision.
PLMRS Narrowband Corp. and Columbia Capital Corp. lost their appeals of Federal Communications Commission decisions to auction four 220 MHz nationwide licenses instead of granting them on a non-commercial basis via lottery as originally proposed in 1991. The FCC got auction authority in 1993. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said Columbia showed neither that the “commission decided to auction the licenses based upon the impermissible expectation of federal revenues” nor that former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt “should have disqualified himself because he had unalterably decided to vote for an auction even before the period for public comment had opened.”
