WASHINGTON-The FCC’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau said on Friday that it has eliminated 99 percent of its infamous backlog-defined as items pending more than one year.
In a presentation to the Federal Communications Commission, WTB Chief Thomas Sugrue said that only 630 items remain on a backlog that once totaled 64,000. Of this 1 percent, 80 percent to 90 percent of these “we couldn’t grant if we wanted to.” These include those that are waiting clearance or coordination with other government agencies or other governments such as Mexico and Canada.
The wireless bureau received praise from all of the commissioners who used words like herculean and “they said it couldn’t be done.”
FCC Commissioner Michael Powell pointed out that in addition to reducing the backlog, systems have been put in place to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. “What’s more important is the systems, procedures and processes [are in place] so we have some confidence we won’t find ourselves in that situation again regardless of the heroic people at the table,” Powell said.
Some of the things the wireless bureau did to reduce the backlog and help to ensure against a new one included a streamlining initiative and releasing “short forms on recon petition,” Sugrue said.
In the past, the bureau would reiterate all of the reasons for the original decision in its order denying a reconsideration petition, now that is not done. Sugrue told the commissioners that in the early days of the backlog-reduction effort, a WTB staffer drafted an order using the new procedures only to find that one had already been drafted using the old procedures. The one with the new procedures was three pages, the other was 15.
“Of course drafting two orders for each item is not the way to reduce the backlog but I thought it was a good illustration,” he said.
The effort was labor intensive at all levels of the commission. Indeed, 141 decisions were made at the commission level during the past twelve months. That total is 130 percent higher than average. The highest number in the past had been 76. In fact, Sugrue told reporters after the meeting that the FCC’s Common Carrier Bureau, which generally has the most items before the FCC, had only 130 items before the commissioners during the past year.
The 64,000-item backlog caught the attention of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee in 1998.
“It is inconceivable to me that the commission would leave this matter unresolved for this long while innocent consumers who have been defrauded of nearly $30 million have been forced to wait anxiously for an FCC order that would allow them to recoup at least some of their investments,” McCain said.
Even though McCain was specifically referring to one long-standing item, the Goodman/Chan saga was indicative of the backlog, he said in the letter.
At the time, then-WTB chief Daniel Phythyon said the backlog consisted of 50,000 applications for multiple address system licenses and would be soon resolved. But Phythyon left WTB in November 1998 and the backlog persisted.
The problem with the backlog was in addition to consumers and industry being left in the dark, the fact that it was getting bigger instead of smaller meant that the FCC, as a whole, seemed inefficient and ineffective to the wireless industry.
Sugrue began his tenure at the FCC in January 1999, by March of that year he had written to McCain and assured him that within one year the backlog, minus complicated or intra-agency matters, would be resolved. Then he and his team set to work. During Friday’s meeting, Sugrue credited WTB Deputy Chief Gerald P. Vaughan and recognized each of his division chiefs-giving extra kudos to D’wana Terry of the private radio and public safety division and Steve Weingarten of the commercial wireless division.
In addition to reporting to the commissioners, Sugrue was expected to send a letter to McCain detailing the elimination of the backlog.
