Cities Grow Impatient as Satellite Dishes Proliferate Pending FCC Decision
Two-and-a-half years after the direct broadcast satellite industry appealed restrictive satellite dish placement laws in Boston, Chicago and Philadelphia to the FCC, local officials said in interviews they're growing impatient at the lack of action. With the laws on hold pending an FCC decision, officials in those cities say what they consider to be an unsightly blight is getting worse. The three cities’ placement laws have been stayed by the FCC.
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"It’s very frustrating. I'm going to have to make a trip to Washington, D.C., to try to push things along,” said Boston City Councilor Sal LaMattina, a Democrat who sponsored Boston’s 2012 ordinance largely prohibiting dishes on the facades of buildings. “There were satellite dishes all over the houses. On the attached triple-deckers, you'd see six, seven dishes. All you could see were the dishes.” A Philadelphia official also expressed frustration, while Chicago officials didn’t comment for this report.
The FCC Intergovernmental Advisory Committee chided in a March 2013 (http://bit.ly/1l7GH5f) recommendation saying the “length of the current stay of lawful local government action in three of the country’s largest cities, without any legal justification other than the filing of a complaint, is inappropriate, and the effect is inconsistent with the intent and language of the” Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) rule. IAC recommended the FCC “rule on these outstanding matters immediately or lift the stays of enforcement of the three ordinances pending the Commission’s resolution of these matters.” Citing the pending November 2011 appeal by DirecTV, Dish Network and the Satellite Broadcasting & Communications Association (SBCA), which also represents dish equipment makers, of the three municipal laws, an FCC spokeswoman declined comment on why the commission hasn’t acted, and defended the stay on local ordinances.
In adopting the 1996 OTARD rule, the FCC believed that allowing “arguably invalid restrictions” to stand pending a commission decision “could serve as a disincentive to consumers to choose DBS and other services,” said the agency spokeswoman. That would undermine Congress’s aim in the 1996 Telecom Act, on which OTARD is based, to discourage restrictions on dishes, she said. The stay has meant that “the uncontrolled proliferation of satellite dishes on the facades of Philadelphia houses and multi-unit buildings continues, with all the negative visual, safety, and quality of life impacts that led the City to enact the ordinance,” said City Solicitor Shelley Smith in a written statement. “Our citizens deserve a decision on this important matter that directly and adversely affects their neighborhoods.”
SBCA too had urged quick action, saying in a 2012 ex parte filing (http://bit.ly/1nefYUm) that “the commission must act now.” Philadelphia’s law was “causing real harm right now, including depressing subscribership” to DBS companies, said the association. SBCA still thinks “the ordinances are plainly illegal,” said Executive Director Joseph Widoff in a written statement Friday. “They denied consumer choice on the day they were enacted and they do so today.” The industry objections reported to the FCC stem from the three cities’ passing ordinances in 2011 and 2012 limiting the placement on building facades of dishes that are visible from the street.
The satellite industry believes the laws violate OTARD’s ban on restrictions that “unreasonably delay (or) increase the cost” of installing or maintaining dishes, said an FCC Q-and-A on the OTARD rule (http://fcc.us/1jO8ELu). SBCA and members DirecTV and Dish worried that additional cities would adopt similar laws, they said. “Were Boston’s approach to be replicated by others, the satellite industry would no longer be able to compete with cable in urban areas.”
The cities have said OTARD doesn’t prohibit all regulations on the placement of dishes. It permits cities to address legitimate public safety and economic development concerns, such as the ability “to keep its neighborhoods viable by protecting their appearance, property values and quality of life,” said Philadelphia’s FCC response to the challenge of its law. The cities have said their aim wasn’t to block dishes entirely. Philadelphia said in another FCC filing (http://bit.ly/1mavel0) that its aim was to steer dishes to go up in less prominent locations -- like roofs, backyards, or side walls and yards -- if it wouldn’t harm DBS service. (kmurakami@warren-news.com)