FCC adopts tower-siting shot clock

Federal Communications Commission adopted a shot clock of 90 days for state and local jurisdictions to act on tower collocation applications and 150 days to act on all other tower siting applications, but fell short of CTIA’s request of deeming the application granted if the state or local jurisdiction fail to act within the time frame.
The unanimous vote for a declaratory ruling “strikes an elegant balance” between federal, local and state jurisidictions, and keeps the role of the courts intact, said FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell. In essence, the commission defined the timeframe for what is a reasonable timeframe in which states and local jurisdictions have to act on tower siting applications.
FCC staff told the commission it expects to see a significant amount of new and collocated tower siting applications as AWS and 700 MHz spectrum networks are built out, as well as wireless broadband services expand. CTIA filed a petition for rulemaking in July 2008, saying it counted 3,300 applications pending at the time, and of those, 760 applications were more than one year old and 180 of those applications were more than three years old. Of the 760 applications, 350 of those applications were applications to collocate, CTIA said.
“We are grateful that Chairman Genachowski and the Commissioners recognize that wireless infrastructure deployment is the fundamental enabler of all wireless services, including wireless broadband,” said Michael T.N. Fitch, President and CEO of PCIA.
“In early October at our International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. & Entertainment Show, the chairman declared his support for CTIA’s request for a tower siting ‘shot clock’ that would require state and local zoning authorities to act within a reasonable, fixed timeframe on wireless tower siting requests. Fast forward to today’s meeting when the commission provided much-needed certainty to the process by setting a reasonable review period and clarifying that a zoning authority may not deny an application filed by one provider based on the presence of another wireless provider in the area,” said CTIA President and CEO Steve Largent.