Carriers Make Case at OMB Against FCC’s Backup Power Rule
CTIA and PCIA asked the Office of Management and Budget to reject the backup power requirements for cell sites in the FCC’s Hurricane Katrina order as not justifying the costs and as inconsistent with the Paperwork Reduction Act. The rule has been on hold as OMB completes its evaluation. It’s also the subject of a court challenge by wireless carriers. Carriers and tower companies would have to install batteries at 220,000 sites if the rule takes effect and survives the federal court appeal.
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“CTIA suggests that OMB and the FCC work together to ensure that the… reporting requirements do not impose unrealistic burdens on wireless carriers and consider alternate approaches that benefit the public through less restrictive means,” the association said. It estimates that 73 companies will file initial reports after studying the status of all their towers and other wireless facilities. Some 20 will file certified plan reports at 12 months. The average cost per company will be $312,600, the CTIA said.
Even if the OMB approves the rule, it faces a continuing court challenge. In July, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit put off a decision on a carrier challenge to the rule during the OMB’s review, and continued a stay of the order. The FCC last year required carriers to install batteries providing eight hours’ backup power at most cell sites and other telecom facilities as part of its response to communications breakdowns during Hurricane Katrina. Carriers argue that in many places complying with the requirement is impossible or prohibitively expensive.
“The back-up power rule as adopted by the Commission hinders this proceeding’s goal of enhancing the redundancy, reliability and resiliency of critical public and private emergency communications,” the CTIA said. “Further, the FCC grossly underestimated the burden this reporting requirement will impose on CMRS providers. The reporting requirement will impose both significant financial and personnel resource burdens on the wireless industry and the Commission.”
CTIA said the rule provides the same requirement for all carriers and cell sites, but all sites are not equal. Some are “hub” locations and others are merely “fill-in” sites. “Moreover, different areas of the country face different types of risks,” the CTIA said. “While hurricanes are a particularly acute problem in Florida, that is not true in Arizona; whereas California is susceptible to earthquakes, North Dakota is not; and highly populated urban areas like New York City and Washington D.C. may face special risks of terrorism not present in other parts of the country.”
Complying with the rule would sometimes make networks less reliable, the CTIA said. Carriers couldn’t move assets around when disaster strikes the way they did during hurricanes Gustav and Ike, the group said: “They would be out of compliance in the areas from where the assets were moved.” The CTIA also said FCC’s estimates for how long it would take carriers and tower companies to report the status of their facilities wildly underestimates the effort. The FCC estimates companies would spend on average 96 hours to file the initial report. “Applying this estimate, mid-sized and large carriers theoretically would have between seven and 35 seconds to complete the reporting requirement for each tower utilized,” CTIA said.
The PCIA said each tower has on average attachments from two carriers -- so reports would have to be filed on about 500,000 wireless facilities. “Each report will provide detailed information as to why the facility fits into one of the Commission’s six delineated categories for application of the Order’s backup power requirements,” the group said. “It is not clear how the Commission can adequately process this staggering amount of information, particularly without using any kind of standardized reporting device to automate the process.”
T-Mobile also filed comments at the OMB saying it would take thousands of hours for larger carriers to comply with just the inventory requirements: “To complete this audit, carriers will be required to compile, review, copy, and submit tens of thousands of pages of site leases, as well as thousands of local, state, and federal laws and ordinances that affect the use of various types of power sources.” T-Mobile said it would have to survey 40,000 cell sites.
That amount of time is unjustified, T-Mobile said. “The information, which will be in myriad, carrier-specific formats and consist of tens of thousands of pages, will be virtually unreviewable,” the company said.
Sprint Nextel told OMB that the carrier’s employees would have to work around the clock to survey all its towers in six months. “Sprint Nextel will have to assemble an inter-disciplinary team including site development personnel, structural engineers (from both within and outside the company), contract specialists and lawyers (both in-house and especially outside counsel in each state who specialize in real estate, zoning and environmental law) in order to gather the necessary information,” the carrier said.
AT&T filed a letter at OMB raising questions about FCC estimates of the time it would take carriers to comply. The carrier said it raised similar questions when the FCC sought comments. The commission later changed its estimates slightly. “But even using the high end of the Commission’s estimate (192 hours), AT&T would still have only about 4 seconds per asset to complete all of the tasks required by the Order, which is obviously a serious underestimate of the actual amount of time necessary to comply with the information collection in the Order,” AT&T said.