Reply to Kennard: Since when has the FCC been for the public?
To the Editor:
I read [Federal Communications Commission] Chairman (William) Kennard’s response in your Aug. 24, 1998, issue to a previous article about the direction Sen. (John) McCain appears to be taking with the FCC and can only feel that Mr. Kennard must not have done well in FCC History 101.
Mr. Kennard states that the commission is for the public and not for special interest groups. History does not support his statement.
Remember Docket 830737, which took away the common person’s right to file an application for a radio license with simple engineering analysis and forced the applicant to file only through a special interest group (“frequency coordinator”), forcing an applicant to pay a private party for the right to hold a government-issued permit?
Remember when the 800 MHz band was originally opened for business? Initially, big business could only hold one license in a specific geographic area. Then, in response to someone other than the public, the commission allowed licensees to hold an unlimited number of these licenses, starting the road to frequency oligarchy. I wonder if Mr. Kennard knows how to spell “Nextel?”
Mr. Kennard should know that the commission made numerous changes and waivers to allow Nextel to monopolize the band. I am sorry to be the one to inform Mr. Kennard that Nextel probably does not qualify as “public” in the eyes of radio suppliers, dealers or users.
Initial users of [specialized mobile radio] systems in the 800 MHz band in the Detroit market paid about $16 per month per radio (flat charge) for system usage. Now they must pay Nextel a minimum of $29 per month, plus a per-minute charge over a certain amount of airtime. Nextel has only been able to do this with the direct cooperation of the FCC.
While I am certain that employees at the FCC are busy with auction matters (where the public cannot participate because of the obscene money involved), we have already seen the FCC abdicate responsibility in the frequency-management issues (i.e. “frequency coordinators”), and I hear rumors that the commission is studying a special interest group (oops, I mean frequency coordinator) proposal to take over the commission’s enforcement activity.
Mr. Kennard should be aware that when the commission required applicants to file through coordinators, license compliance dropped at least 35 percent. I would guess that today, probably half of the users our company comes into contact with do not hold the appropriate FCC authorizations. Does Mr. Kennard think this ratio would improve if some other entity does the enforcement?
While Mr. Kennard is proud of the fact the commission has locked the common person (“public”) out of the license arena and added billions to the U.S. treasury, he has done so at the expense of alienating the public and depriving the treasury of a lot of “little” license fees of $70 each from those users who question the wisdom and cost of the required frequency “coordination.”
A while ago, a license application was a one-page affair (Form 574). It had more information than was really necessary (what value is “AAT?”), but at least it didn’t take too long or waste too many trees. Then along came the Paperwork Reduction Act, and the commission took it to heart. We now have 19 pieces of paper (Form 600), most with writing on both sides. Add to that, the recently required Form 159 “Remittance Advice” (four pieces of paper, three of which have writing on both sides) so that someone at the commission can tell who the check is coming from for the license fee.
At least it keeps the recycling industry alive and well.
Has anyone calculated the cost in time with the change from the old “574 days” to the new and improved “600 days?”
We have a user that is going on nine months waiting for a simple 450 MHz simplex 40-watt system to be licensed. Between the coordinator and the commission, no one can seem to get it by Canada, yet both the commission and the coordinator ought to be able to accomplish this simple task.
Before the mandate to use frequency coordinators, we could pick up the phone, call the Canadian Department of Communications and inquire if our pick of frequencies would meet with their approval. Job done. Total time: about 12 minutes. Of course, if the DOC follows the FCC in form and function, we probably couldn’t do that any more, but it was efficient while it lasted. License grants rarely took more than four weeks back then, even with Canadian coordination. Now, nine months and still counting.
This is efficiency, Mr. Kennard? This is promoting “public interest?”
Mr. Kennard and those of us out here in the trenches are obviously reading form two different textbooks.
I represent no particular outside or industry group, but as I look over the past 10 years or so, I fail to see any example of the FCC acting “in the public interest.” Maybe it’s that Mr. Kennard’s definition of “public” is major manufacturers, wireless providers like AT&T (Wireless Services Inc.), Southwestern Bell (Mobile Systems Inc.), etc., and Nextel (Communications Inc.). It’s possible McCain has a slightly different definition also.
And didn’t some publication’s survey a few decades ago name the Federal Communications Commission the “worst run federal agency?” Boy, I can sure see the changes since then.
Scott S. Adams
Manager
Adams Electronics Co.
Wixom, Mich.
AMTA reserves right to disagree
To the Editor
I am responding to the recent letter, published in RCR, by [Federal Communications Commission] Chairman William Kennard, which carried the headline, “Commission does not serve special interest groups.”
In regard to the commission’s mission and most of the chairman’s statement, I couldn’t agree more. [American Mobile Telecommunications Association] has enjoyed a very positive working relationship with the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau and its predecessor, the Private Radio Bureau, over the past 13 years. I also agree wholeheartedly that the wireless bureau has had many key successes during its short tenure, and under an extremely difficult regulatory and legislative policy transition.
Nonetheless, our mission, like that of any other trade association, is to build consensus within our constituencies, to articulate positions based on those efforts and to initiate or participate in regulatory proceedings that actually or potentially impact our members. Our educational role further serves the FCC by imparting to our members the information they need to comply with what, for them, are increasingly complex regulations.
AMTA has always tried to balance the interests of our constituencies with broader public-interest considerations, and believes the two coincide much more frequently than they conflict. While we respect and acknowledge the FCC’s mission of seeking the public interest, we respectfully reserve the right sometimes to disagree with the wireless bureau and/or the commission on how that interest will best be served, either in specific proceedings or in overall policy.
Our responsibility to our members compels us to make such views known and part of the public record. We look forward to continued dialogue with both the bureau and the commission as a whole in our role as representatives of the commercial business wireless industry.
Alan R. Shark
President and Chief Executive Officer
American Mobile Telecommunications Association
Carriers should embrace resellers
To the Editor:
I am continually dumbfounded by the mindset of the resellers in the wireless industry. The concept that they are demanding the right to sell a carrier’s services while it is clearly contrary to the carrier’s wishes, is a concept that is foreign to me.
At Pacific Cel
lular, the relationship we have with the carriers that embrace us is based on a win-win situation for our mutual entities. We provide an effective distrib
ution channel and assume all costs associated with marketing, customer service and credit risk.
We have never thought of these relationships as having been mandated by [Federal Communications Commission] policy or congressional action. From our perspective, the sunset rule scheduled to go into effect in 2002 will be a non-event. Our carriers will continue to service us because it suits their self-interests.
Almost nine months ago, we became the first reseller of [personal communications services] in the [United States]. We have enjoyed an outstanding relationship with our local PCS carrier because it wants to do business with us, not because it has to. As a result, we have delivered more than four times the number of activations than were originally projected.
Shame on those carriers that do not see this opportunity to expand traffic on their networks. Soon, the public will have as many as 10 carriers to choose from for wireless communications. The carriers that embrace resellers will succeed, while the others will falter in this heightened competitive environment.
Morris Fox
President
Pacific Cellular
