Defanging a Paper Tiger

[Commentary] Every broadcaster dreads a visit by a Federal Communications Commission inspector, but broadcasters also know that the presence of the “Highway Patrol of the Airwaves” helps keep the playing field level and the participants honest. Violators of the FCC’s rules risk detection and know that a fine (or worse) may result. For longer than the FCC itself has existed, a network of field offices has been key to maintaining order on the airwaves by resolving interference disputes, shutting down unlicensed operators and providing valuable and dispassionate advice on the FCC’s rules and policies that help minimize ongoing spectrum conflicts. The FCC’s own website observes that its field offices are its “eyes and ears” on the ground.

Unfortunately, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler is now circulating an order that effectively leaves the FCC in the dark. Earlier in March, Chairman Wheeler proposed to his colleagues to close more than half of the FCC’s field offices and cut field enforcement staff by almost two-thirds. New York City, Atlanta, Miami, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Dallas and Columbia, Maryland: that’s the entire list of offices that would remain open. Slated for closure are offices near major cities like Seattle, Denver, Boston, Philadelphia and Houston. GPS outage in Honolulu? Chairman Wheeler says he’ll send a “Tiger Team” from Columbia, Maryland, to work on it. Sheriff department radios getting jammed in Tampa? Someone will be there within 24 hours, he told Rep Gus Bilirakis (R-FL). All technical enforcement for the entire nation will be handled by a cadre of just 33 FCC agents spread across only eight offices. Fortunately, there is still time for the FCC to reverse course and rethink its proposal to gut the field offices. Perhaps it took the proposal itself to help the agency realize just how valuable those who use radio frequencies believe the field offices to be. Most of all, at a time when it the FCC is pursuing policies that will inevitably create an environment where interference is more likely to occur, it must not devastate its field enforcement resources.

[Bob Weller is Vice President of Spectrum Policy at NAB]