Key FCC Licensing Systems Down; Industry Feeling Immediate Impacts
The FCC is extending the deadlines for filings made in the universal licensing system and antenna structure registration system (ASR) and warned that, like those systems, the tower construction notification system (TCNS) and E-106 System also went down last Friday at about 6:30 p.m. EDT, said a notice in Wednesday’s Daily Digest.
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.
The FCC isn't saying when the systems will be restored to full operations. “We identified the need to upgrade our systems to ensure secure filings,” an FCC spokesperson emailed: “In the interim, we are implementing measures to handle time sensitive matters including emergency special temporary authority applications.”
Industry lawyers told us Wednesday the shutdown of the systems, even temporarily, is significant since companies depend on ULS, in particular, as part of transactions and often face tight deadlines. For example, T-Mobile has been fighting to be able to use the 2.5 GHz licenses it bought in last year’s 2.5 GHz auction (see Ref:2304060062]) with filings being made in ULS.
NATE is monitoring the outage, emailed President Todd Schlekeway. “Certainly, NATE member contractors can't perform their communications infrastructure building, maintenance and installation services until their customers get the 'green light' from the myriad of applicable agency reviews that are required,” he said: The FCC systems going down is “problematic from a deployment perspective and this issue will become more pressing by the day until the processes are restored to full operations.”
“The outage is actively impacting WIA members’ operations, prohibiting them from filing new sites with the FCC across a number of important systems,” emailed Mike Saperstein, Wireless Infrastructure Association senior vice president-government affairs: “If our members cannot register a new site, they cannot deploy new 5G infrastructure -- it is a direct impact. We look forward to seeing the issue resolved quickly, so our members can continue to expand broadband access.” Other groups representing licensees didn't comment Wednesday.
The FCC’s ULS system was “state of the art in the 1990s,” said a lawyer who does some transactional work: “They’ve done their best to update it, keep it going,” but it’s surprising there haven’t been more updates. "It is only fair, as a matter of equity and due process, for the commission to grant filing extensions if its IT systems are not working,” said Cooley’s Robert McDowell: “This is the right thing to do."
The Wireless and Public Safety bureaus “will provide further guidance, including specific deadlines, by issuing another Public Notice once these systems are operational,” the notice said: “The Commission is otherwise operating normally, staff of the affected Bureaus are available for relevant inquiries, and the FCC’s 24/7 Operations Center remains open and available.” Because parties “have not and will not be able to make electronic filings or view the contents of the affected systems while they are unavailable, we are extending the filing deadlines for all regulatory filings that needed to be or will need to be made in these systems starting June 9 ... and until the Commission announces normal ULS operations, for at least three business days after access to the systems resumes,” the notice said. Review periods based on filings made in the TCNS and E-106 systems in progress “during the period of unavailability” are also paused “while the systems are unavailable,” the notice said.