WASHINGTON-Several years after their requests originally were turned down because they were filed on paper instead of electronically, a number of specialized mobile radio operators have been granted wide-area licenses.
The Federal Communications Commission-as part of its move to eliminate a backlog of unresolved issues that caught the attention of Congress in 1998-ruled the SMR carriers qualified for wide-area licenses.
The applicants originally were turned down because they had not submitted supporting information in an electronic format. The applicants had submitted the data on paper. The applicants argued, and the FCC agreed, their applications would have been approved had the FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau reviewed them manually.
“Given the fact that petitioners have demonstrated that their applications were grantable under [the FCC’s] short-spacing rules, we do not believe denial is warranted solely on the basis that petitioners did not provide information in electronic format … [the FCC] did have on hand all necessary information (albeit not solely in electronic format) justifying the grant of these applications,” the FCC said in its order released Jan. 14.
In 1994, the FCC had a backlog of more than 40,000 wide-area applications. There seemed to be no end in sight for the backlog because the FCC was manually reviewing each separate application instead of using a computer program to check for possible interference conflicts. The American Mobile Telecommunications Association, the Industrial Telecommunications Association and the Personal Communications Industry Association-known collectively as the industry coalition-stepped up and gave the FCC a computer program to process the applications.
Applicants were asked to submit new information in a format that could be used by the computer.
More than 4,500 applications were granted using the software, but there were still glitches requiring some applications to be reprocessed. In the end, 6,300 applications were granted.
The computer program “was a first-ditch effort … there were some unrealistic time frames in the development of the software. There were some glitches. I haven’t seen a program come online without a few problems,” said Elizabeth R. Sachs, an attorney representing SMRs who has been involved in the process.
The problems persisted when some applicants objected to being turned down and filed petitions for reconsideration in 1996.
