FCC Extends More Filing Deadlines; Blanket Extension Unlikely
The FCC provided relief Thursday on additional filing deadlines, as industry and government groups face COVID-19. On Wednesday, as some expected (see 2003230058), the FCC extended the deadline on a net neutrality partial refresh (see 2003250041). Industry officials said in interviews more extensions are likely, though not with the amounts of time being sought in most cases.
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Chairman Ajit Pai appears to be “extending comment deadlines as a matter of course and when necessary, meaning regardless of whether a request for extension is filed and on a proceeding-by-proceeding basis at around 10 days out,” said a former spectrum official. A second former spectrum official said it’s unclear how many more extensions the FCC will grant: “We’re assuming the deadlines will stick.” The agency declined to comment.
Extending deadlines is a “no-brainer,” said Gigi Sohn of the Georgetown Law Institute for Technology Law & Policy. “The adjustments most people, including FCC staff, have to make to the new reality of telework, online schooling, lack of childcare and social distancing are enormous. A 30-day extension will make little to no difference in the vast majority of these proceedings.”
The FCC “wants to keep blanket extensions to a minimum,” Fletcher Heald’s Francisco Montero said: “Things like auctions must be done at a blanket level. But the FCC would prefer to keep extensions and waivers on a case-by-case basis, although they are likely to make it clear that extensions will be liberally granted given the situation. That's what they did in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria.”
Free State Foundation President Randolph May would be surprised if more deadlines aren’t delayed. The FCC shouldn’t “continue the extensions too far forward,” May emailed: “The current situation has just reinforced, indeed amplified, the importance of robust, ubiquitous broadband networks to our general welfare.” The "commission continues to try to operate as much as it can under business as usual principles,” said Benton Institute for Broadband & Society Senior Counselor Andrew Schwartzman, who requested the net neutrality delay.
The Office of Engineering and Technology Thursday extended the deadline for replies on proposed changes to the 5.9 GHz rules but didn’t grant the 90 days sought by the Intelligent Transportation Society of America and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (see 2003230036). “A limited 21-day extension of the reply comment deadline is warranted in order to develop the record to the fullest extent possible,” OET said. The FCC proposal was hotly contested in initial comments (see 2003090059).
The deadline for comment on the biennial 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act report for 2020 was extended to April 14, said a Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau public notice posted Thursday on docket 10-213. The comments had been due March 30 (see 2003030061). Consumer groups requested the further time.
The Wireless Bureau extended the comments due date to April 7, replies April 17, on an Alaska plan population distribution methodology proposal (see 2002250036), said a notice Thursday on docket 16-271. That's shorter than the 60 days the Alaska Telecom Association requested.