California Company Faces $25,000 Fine for Violating FCC PLMR Rules
Mobile Relay Associates faces a proposed $25,000 penalty for violation of FCC rules in its operation of private land mobile radio (PLMR) station WPPF234 in Malibu, California. MRA failed to “monitor and take other precautions to avoid causing harmful interference…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Timely, relevant coverage of court proceedings and agency rulings involving tariffs, classification, valuation, origin and antidumping and countervailing duties. Each day, Trade Law Daily subscribers receive a daily headline email, in-depth PDF edition and access to all relevant documents via our trade law source document library and website.
to another licensed station operating on a shared frequency in the Los Angeles area,” said a notice released by the FCC Enforcement Bureau Tuesday. The FCC warned MRA its operations violated the commission’s sharing and monitoring requirements for PLMR stations, “however, MRA failed to modify its operations of the station to remedy the interference it was causing,” the bureau said. MRA released a statement saying it respects the Enforcement Bureau but disagrees strongly with the notice of apparent liability for forfeiture (NALF). “MRA intends to file a statement in opposition thereto,” the company said. “MRA has not and does not intentionally cause harmful interference to co-channel licensees, and did not intentionally cause harmful interference here.” The proposed fine “represents disparate and haphazard enforcement of the rules,” MRA said, citing a case where a $17,000 fine was proposed against another company for causing harmful interference to the Coast Guard. “MRA’s heavy use of the shared channels in this matter was a direct result of unlicensed operations by San Gabriel Transit on another … exclusive channel licensed to MRA, which knocked MRA’s customers off the exclusive channel and onto the shared channels,” the company said. “Although MRA had complained to the FCC staff, and although unlicensed operations interfering with exclusive licensees is a worse offense than what MRA is accused of, the FCC staff has not issued any NALF against San Gabriel Transit.”