Industries Battle in Replies on Future of FCC Regulatory Fees
Opposition filings to NAB’s proposal to increase the payor base for FCC regulatory fees are “myopically focused” on unlicensed spectrum instead of the unfair apportionment of the FCC’s costs, NAB said in reply comments posted in docket 21-190 Monday (see…
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2110230001). “It is patently unfair, unlawful, and contrary to the public interest” to require broadcasters to absorb fee increases to pay for FCC activities “that are primarily for the benefit of other entities in the telecommunications ecosystem.” “Reapportioning FTEs (full-time equivalents) of a bureau or office on an ad hoc basis” can create “significant uncertainty,” said CTIA. “NAB’s proposal would undermine future innovation in online services and reduce access to these benefits,” said the Entertainment Software Association. The FCC was “right” to reject NAB’s proposal in the 2021 regulatory fee order, “and it should likewise reject NAB’s latest attempt,” said CTA. WISPA and the Wi-Fi Alliance said there’s no legal basis for assessing regulatory fees against unlicensed spectrum users. Doing so would ignore the Communications Act, contravene FCC precedent and harm consumers, said the Wi-Fi Alliance. Filings from broadcasters backed NAB. “The vitriolic nature” of filings from opponents “shows a degree of entitlement to the Commission’s largesse that is borne of free-riding on the backs of broadcasters,” said a joint filing from state broadcast associations. The FCC must revise its rules to “impose regulatory fees on certain of those Big Tech entities that have to this point benefited from the agency’s regulation,” said a joint filing from network affiliate groups. The number of filings against more categories of operations being charged regulatory fees just shows how many parties benefit from FCC regulation but don't bear the costs, said foreign-flagged satellite operators Telesat, OneWeb, Kepler and SES/O3b. They have said experimental license holders, FCC auction participants, broadband internet access services, holders of equipment authorizations and operators of unlicensed spectrum database should start paying regulatory fees. CTIA disagreed, saying the idea would unfairly shift a disproportionate share of regulatory fees among regulated parties and be inconsistent with the commission's Section 9 regulatory fee policy. Scott Palo, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder's Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research, said there's little evidence the FCC incurs big costs from experimental license holders, and imposing a regulatory fee could chill academic research that develops and tests new technologies.