SBE Pleased With ‘Overdue’ FCC Response on BAS

SBE said the FCC has acted on its request for clarification of broadcast auxiliary license policies.
The engineering society said Cathleen A. Massey, deputy chief of the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau, wrote back to the SBE to clarify various aspects of the commissions ruling dealing with automatic termination of broadcast auxiliary licenses.
“The Clarification Order just released, which SBE has placed on its website www.sbe.org, addresses certain aspects of the 2005 FCC Automatic Termination order which were unclear,” SBE stated.
SBE General Counsel Chris Imlay said the commission clarification was long overdue.
“BAS licensees are entitled to understand what obligations they have to fulfill in order to avoid the ultimate sanction of license termination, and they are entitled to know what the effect of the new requirements is on long-outstanding licenses which have been modified.”
Imlay notes that many inquiries about the process have been received by SBE, not only from engineers, but as well from communications lawyers who found the FCC’s orders on automatic terminations confusing.
The clarification letter, SBE said, confirms that Part 74 licenses are subject to automatic termination provisions; what the effect is on modified licenses if the modification is subject to termination for failure to file a timely Notification of Completion of Construction; and the best means of protecting old license parameters, during the period after a modified license is granted but before the modified facilities are constructed.
The commission did not agree with SBE’s suggestion that further public notices concerning the process are necessary but SBE President Chriss Scherer said the group is pleased with the response to make the process understandable.