WASHINGTON-The wireless telecommunications industry last week downed a stealth Federal Aviation Administration effort to raise millions of dollars by charging carriers to process antenna clearance applications.
The agency, with backing of the Clinton administration, but not lawmakers, floated an amendment during late stages of the House-Senate FAA reauthorization conference that proposed a charge of $125 for routine FAA clearance applications and $2,600 for more complicated ones.
FAA antenna clearance consent is a prerequisite to winning approval from the Federal Communications Commission and state and local governments to license and construct paging, pocket phone and radio dispatch systems.
According to the now-defunct draft amendment, 17,000 applications are processed each year by the FAA. The agency said a little more than half of those can be routinely processed, but the rest require a full aeronautical study at an annual cost of $10 million.
With new personal communications services systems being licensed and constructed, the FAA predicts it will be asked to process 50,000 applications annually. The estimated cost for fiscal 1997, which begins tomorrow: $13 million.
The FAA amendment was not included in FAA reauthorization bills passed by the House and Senate.
“We are appalled at this effort to further burden the wireless industry,” said Jay Kitchen, president of the Personal Communications Industry Association.
Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association and the National Association of Broadcasters also lobbied against the provision. The Senate Commerce Committee staff aided wireless lobbyists in their effort to kill the amendment.
Had the FAA amendment prevailed, wireless carriers would have had yet one more expense to deal with. For new licenses, the federal government now requires payment in the form of a high bid. User fees must accompany filings to the FCC. PCS licensees must pay to relocate microwave users from the 2 GHz band, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dollars to build next-generation pocket phone systems and market service in a competitive environment.
In addition, state and local governments are eager to tax wireless carriers. CTIA asked the FCC last week to keep such initiatives in check (see related story, Page 1).
