FCC Significantly Improves in OPM Employee Survey
Monday, FCC issued a press release on the results of the 2010 OPM Viewpoint Employee Satisfaction Survey that quoted Chairman Genachowski as saying,
“I am delighted that the FCC has been recognized as the ‘most improved’ federal agency. The survey results reflect the hard work being done throughout the agency to make the FCC a model of excellence in government.
"The FCC’s reform agenda, which builds on the impressive strides made by Commissioner Copps as acting chairman, includes creating new opportunities for employees to provide feedback; improving employee communication through technology and new media; and focusing on leadership development and opportunities for employees. I applaud the work of the FCC management and staff and look forward to more great things to come."
Long time blog readers may recall that this survey, previously called the Federal Human Capital Survey, has been a recurring topic here. A topic in which FCC has done extremely poorly in the past.
In May 2009 we wrote,
“FCC ranked 28th out of 32 ranked small agencies. Its score of 55.0 also put it lower than all the large agencies except the Department of Transportation. The only small agencies scoring worse than FCC were: International Boundary and Water Commission, Selective Service System, Broadcasting Board of Governors, and Federal Labor Relations Authority. Also (only) 20 out of the 216 ranked "agency subcomponents" ranked lower than FCC including FAA, FEMA, TSA, and FCC's neighbor - Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
NTIA was not treated as a subcomponent so there is no data on it.”
Earlier we described how the Commission’s ancien regime had dodged early OPM surveys even though they were a well publicized and admirable Bush 43 Administration initiative. Well FCC is now fully on board and is moving up in the ratings, although Chmn. G. did overreach a bit on the “ ‘most improved’ federal agency” a bit. As the image above from the report shows, OPM only identified FCC as one of 11 agencies with the “highest increases since 2008”.
The raw data shows the very positive improvement since the former chairman left. On the questions “I feel encouraged to come up with new and better ways of doing things”, in 2008 52% of FCC staffers either strongly agreed or agreed, now it is 62%.
On “My work gives me a feeling of personal accomplishment”, formerly 60% either strongly agreed or agreed, now it is 70%.
On “I can disclose a suspected violation of any law, rule or regulation without fear of reprisal”, there was a big jump: formerly 45% either strongly agreed or agreed, now it is 67%. Perhaps this points to the need to have a credible long term inspector general at FCC - a recurring theme in this blog. While it is laudable that there is great improvement here, what can be done to prevent a low score in the future?
There were also large increases in positive responses to both “Arbitrary action, personal favoritism and coercion for partisan political purposes are not tolerated.” and “Prohibited Personnel Practices are not tolerated” making one wonder what was really going on under the ancien regime? Perhaps another indication of what happens when there is not a credible IG in an agency or perhaps this is why the previous chairman did not want a credible IG!
Finally on “I have a high level of respect for my organization’s senior leaders” formerly 38% either strongly agreed or agreed, now it is 62%!
So congratulations to Chmn. Genachowski and the new team on this major turn around!
So When are the Comments Actually Due?
On May 20, 2010, the Consumer & Governmental Affairs Bureau of the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) released a Public Notice (Notice) seeking to gather information on the feasibility of instituting usage alerts and cut-off mechanisms similar to those required under the European Union (EU) regulations that would provide wireless voice, text, and data consumers in the United States a way to monitor, on a real-time basis, their usage of a wireless communications service, as well as the various charges they may incur in connection with such usage (e.g., roaming services, voice service “minute plans,” text message plans). Specifically, the Commission sought comment on whether technological or other differences exist that would prevent wireless providers in this country from employing similar usage controls as those now required by the EU.
The Notice was published in the Federal Register on May 20, 2010. Therefore, comments are due on July 6, 2010, and reply comments are due on July 19, 2010. Comments should be filed consistent with the instructions provided in the Notice.
Great! But what about the other umpteen ongoing FCC proceedings? How do we find out their comment dates? The bureaucratic response is to keep searching the Federal Register for the docket number and the due date which relative to the FR publication date- maybe a week after FCC release of the document, maybe a month later. Another way is the regulations.gov website which isn’t mentioned on the FCC homepage. It has many, perhaps all, the comment dates of pending FCC proceedings.
.
However, it does not appear to give reply comment dates directly since reply comments are not required by law and some agencies don’t use them. However, this site does give you access to the Federal Register notice of the docket where you can look for the dates.
At one time OET tried to keep track of the comment dates of its dockets in order to ease the task of the public. But this web page is now way out of date and other parts of FCC never even tried to help the public with this task until FCC/CGAB issued this PN.
So rather than increase the clutter on the FCC homepage with special PNs on topics of special political interest, why not have a general solution to this problem, possibly like a generalization of the OET attempt?
Do the Telecom Policy Agencies Need a "Steven Chu"?
The above item appeared recently on Scott Harris’ Facebook page. Scott worked at FCC under Chairman Hundt as the original Chief, International Bureau. He was one of the finest public servants I have ever worked with, always focusing on the bottom line public interest issues. After leaving FCC he had his own law firm for many years, but now is back in public service as General Counsel of the Department of Energy.
Steven Chu is an American physicist and currently the 12th United States Secretary of Energy. Working at Bell Labs and Stanford University, Chu is known for his research in cooling and trapping of atoms with laser light, which won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1997. At the time of his appointment as Energy Secretary, he was a professor of physics and molecular and cellular biology at the University of California, Berkeley and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where his research was concerned primarily with the study of biological systems at the single molecule level.
As the interview in The Atlantic shows, he clearly has a hands on understanding of his agency’s technology. Which started me wondering, in the 3 telecom policy agencies, FCC, NTIA, State/CIP why don’t we have at least one person vaguely comparable to Steven Chu as a political appointee since telecom also has many highly technical aspects? I figure there are 5 presidential appointees at FCC, 2 at NTIA, and 1 at State/CIP. In addition there are at least a dozen “noncareer”/political senior appointees between the 3 agencies.
Comm. Sterling
It is not that the current Administration’s appointees are any worse than the past few decades. Indeed, one could argue that Chmn. Genachowski has more high tech business experience than any of his predecessors. But I don’t see any National Academy of Sciences/National Academy of Engineering members or even almost members among all 3 agencies’ twenty or so senior political appointees.
Technical policy is an integral party of telecom policy. Isn’t there room for at least 1 techie among all these political appointees? Secretary Chu shows that techies can be political appointees and succeed. Why limit this to energy policy?
A Tale of 2 Regulatory Commissions
While I worked at FCC, a colleague used to criticize me for comparing FCC to NRC. But I guess it is OK now that the ex parte NPRM actually compares the two agencies in that area. Hope you surf over to the PK blog and see what I wrote there.
The PK post also includes a suggestion I made on the reboot.FCC.gov site to require conferences that host key FCC speakers to provide the FCC website with videos of the presentations in a timely way. Feel free to go to that site and blast the idea as hopeless naive or even possibly support it.
FCC ex parte NPRM - Initial Thoughts
“I believe that transparency is best achieved through the creation and publication of clear rules. However, for the regulatory regime to be successful, these rules must also be strictly enforced. Based on personal experience, I know that the U.S. regulatory model has only been successful when the FCC has enforced its rules vigorously. Failure to enforce rules sends the inappropriate signal that companies may engage in anticompetitive behavior or other unlawful conduct with impunity.”
Let me provide for potential commenters some facts that are not in the NPRM.
1. In 2009, there were 6070 ex parte notifications filed at FCC. The numbers for 2008 and 2007 were 10,046 and 7,960 respectively. I assume that the drop in 2009 was due to both the inevitable drop in activity with major changes at the Commission and the distraction of the DTV transition.
2. I believe that the Commission’s ex parte rules were heavily influenced by Recommendation No. 77-3 of the former Administrative Conference of the U.S., formerly codified as 1 C.F.R. 305-77.3. The HBO Case mentioned in Chmn. Genachowski’s statement was in March 2007 and the ACUS recommendation was made in October of that year. The ACUS recommendation stated “Agencies should experiment in appropriate situations with procedures designed to disclose oral communications from outside the agency of significant information or argument respecting the merits of proposed rules, made to agency personnel participating in the decision on the proposed rule, by means of summaries promptly placed in the public file, meetings which the public may attend, or other techniques appropriate to their circumstances.”
3.While the NPRM mentions ex parte policies at 3 other commissions, it fails to mention the key fact that parallel policies are in place at all regulatory agencies, be they independent agencies like FCC or Executive Branch agencies. But only FCC has the system where the outside party files the summary that goes on the public record. Thus in the 30 odd years that ex parte procedures have been used for agency rulemaking, no other agency has ever adopted the FCC’s approach. Perhaps the Commission should ask why?
4.Finally, the NPRM states in para. 32 “Regardless of what amendments are adopted in this proceeding or when, we intend to place greater emphasis on enforcement against impermissible ex parte contacts.” This implies there has been some previous emphasis on enforcement. A fairer statement is that enforcement has been ignored for decades. At the October public workshop the staff stated that it dealt with complaints by calling the party at issue and telling them not to do it again. This is reminiscent of the comedy skit in which an unarmed British policemen says to a fleeing robber “Stop or I’ll say stop again”. As far as I can tell, the Commission has NEVER taken ANY ex parte enforcement action. While the NPRM mentions the possibility of “monetary forfeitures”, I doubt that it has legal authority to do so. However, it does have the authority - unused to date - to forbid future oral ex parte by the guilty party and that should be more than adequate IF there is ANY interest in enforcing these rules.
UPDATE
Your blogger’s Petition for Review has finally made it to circulation on the 8th Floor more than a year after it was filed. This was not a very complex matter although it may be the first time ever the commissioners had to formally consider enforcement of their rules.
Stay tuned for the outcome. How much longer could it take?
Ex Parte Reform Proposal at FCC
Oddly, MSTV has nothing on their website yet on the topic.
FY 2011 Budget & Spectrum
Today the President’s FY 2011 budget was unveiled throughout the government. So let’s look at how spectrum was affected.In the FCC’s budget we set a modest increase of the total agency budget from $428M to $443M (Grand Total Proposed Budget Authority) and staff increase from 1,905 to 1,980.
Spectrum No Longer a Strategic Goal
While not explicitly stated, the FCC’s strategic goals have changed and this will affect the resources for spectrum activities. For several years up to and including the FY10 budget the strategic goals of FCC were: Broadband, Competition, Spectrum, Media, Public Safety, and Modernize. This year they are: Broadband, Consumers, Competition and Innovation, Continual Improvement, Public Safety and Homeland Security, and International. Guess what’s missing? This means that spectrum also does not have Performance Commitments and Metrics in the budget and is likely to get less management attention except in the international area where it is explicitly part of the International goal. No doubt the well connected satellite industry will get its attention and others may get crumbs. We will see.
There are two proposed legislative changes related to spectrum:
Spectrum Auction Authority
The Administration proposes to extend indefinitely the authority of the FCC to auction spectrum licenses, which will expire on September 30, 2012. The additional offsetting receipts associated with this permanent extension are estimated to total $1.6 billion through 2020.
This proposal supports the Administration's efforts to foster new wireless broadband technologies by making new spectrum available. Specifically, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration of the Department of Commerce will collaborate with the FCC to develop a plan to make available significant spectrum suitable for both mobile and fixed wireless broadband use over the next ten years. The plan will focus on making spectrum available for exclusive use by commercial broadband providers or technologies, or for dynamic, shared access by commercial and government users, on either a licensed or unlicensed basis.
Spectrum Licensing User Fee
To promote efficient use of the electromagnetic spectrum, the Administration proposes to provide the FCC with new authority to use other economic mechanisms, such as fees, as a spectrum management tool. The Commission would be authorized to set user fees on unauctioned spectrum licenses based on spectrum-management principles. Fees would be phased in over time as part of an ongoing rulemaking process to determine the appropriate application and level for fees. Fee collections are estimated to begin in 2010, and total $4.8 billion through 2020.
The first one puts legislative pressure on NTIA to find more spectrum for the commercial community. One can hear the IRAC protests already. The second means that ALL spectrum users (presumably excepting only noncommerical uses such as public safety) may have to pay for spectrum access. At present chosen groups, like Part 74 licensees, get spectrum for free while others pay for it. Marcus’ First Law of Spectrum Economics: ‘If spectrum is free, then more spectrum is always cheaper than efficient technology”.
The staffing in OET was 84 in FY 09, is budgeted at 90 now, and is proposed to increase to 96 in FY 11. (By contrast when I was hired in 1979, I was #155. Some functions have moved from OET, but that does not account for all this drop.)
Spectrum inventory work is in the budget:
Spectrum Inventory and Broadband Mapping Data: $2,400,000
• Spectrum Inventory: The spectrum inventory initiative is designed to enable user-friendly access to information regarding spectrum bands and licenses, including those that may be suitable for wireless broadband deployment. The FCC’s spectrum inventory activities will focus on providing general information about commercial and non-commercial use of spectrum bands, by users other than federal users, in the mobile range of 225 MHz to 3.7 GHz, as well as more detailed information about bands of particular relevance to broadband. The public will be able to easily browse spectrum bands, search for spectrum licenses, produce maps, and download raw data for further analysis. Through a single FCC portal, users will be able to access basic information on licenses (e.g., licensee name, contact information, frequency bands) as well as descriptions of frequency bands and allocations. Further, the spectrum inventory will include the capability to search for licenses based on commonly recognizable names of companies (e.g. AT&T, Verizon, etc.), and the amount of spectrum held by licensees on a county-by-county basis for many types of licenses. The initiative contemplates continuing improvement and augmentation of the spectrum inventory over time with inclusion of more comprehensive data. The spectrum inventory is intended to assist in ongoing spectrum policy planning and decision- making, promote a robust secondary market in spectrum, and improve communications services in all areas of the United States, including rural and underserved areas as well as tribal lands.
There is a new public safety initiative that is not entirely clear at this time:
Emergency Response Interoperability Center: $1,500,000
The long term mission of the Emergency Response Interoperability Center (ERIC) will be to ensure the operability and interoperability of public safety wireless broadband communications capabilities. The funding provided will be to establish ERIC so that it is operational in advance of the deployment of the public safety broadband wireless capabilities. One function of ERIC will be to establish an advisory function for members of the public safety community and other federal government agencies, including [FCC], DHS and NTIA[, and will work in close coordination with the Department of Homeland Security’s Cyber Security and Communications Directorate]. The long term goal of ERIC is to establish a public safety broadband interoperability communications profile including interoperability standards, authentication, encryption, roaming, priority access, application uses and interconnectivity which will be used to set baseline requirements for public safety users. In addition, public safety broadband capabilities are deployed, ERIC will resolve interoperability-related disputes between public safety entities, work with third parties (e.g., federal government, state and localities, tribal nations) on broadband infrastructure sharing, and maintain relevant databases, among other things. This important initiative will help to remedy historic barriers to public safety communications interoperability, and is a key element of next-generation public safety communications capabilities.
On the NTIA part of the budget, spectrum management staffing stays fixed at 32, although there is a 3 person increase in research at ITS in Boulder CO. This is for a program called Spectrum Access with Intelligent Networks and Cognitive Radios which is described as
The goal of this research program is to examine spectrum sharing approaches and to identify the techniques that can provide the most efficient and effective sharing of the radio spectrum through the use of “Intelligent Radios.” This research will aid the NTIA, the FCC, the telecommunications industry, and other government agencies in the design of dynamic spectrum access schemes for cognitive radio under different communication requirements. The research will also produce interference protection criteria (IPC) for all types of Federal Government radio and radar systems and provide insights and solutions for technical issues associated with spectrum sharing. Under this initiative, NTIA’s Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS) will identify, evaluate, and recommend solutions for the technical issues and challenges of spectrum sharing.
Over the next five years, ITS will produce a number of publications that will provide U.S. federal agencies and commercial service providers, with interference protection criteria and evaluations with respect to various cognitive radio approaches and technologies. Several U.S. federal agencies, along with commercial service providers, will benefit from this information. The FCC and NTIA, with responsibility for spectrum management, are very interested in what cognitive radio technology has to offer and how it would affect their current regulatory scheme. The military and the public safety and emergency response communities see the benefits that this new radio technology offers, with frequency agility and/or flexibility, the ability to enhance interoperability between different radio standards, and the capability to sense the presence of interferers. Other countries and international agencies such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) also are looking to adopt similar cognitive radio approaches to increase spectrum utilization.
The budget says this program will “ aid the NTIA, FCC, the telecommunications industry, and other government agencies in the design of dynamic spectrum access schemes for cognitive radio under different communication requirements.”
The effect of spectrum’s disappearance as a strategic goal could be important. I hope industry and the press insist on clarifications here.
GAO 12/09 Report on FCC Management
At the end of the 2009, GAO issued a report on FCC. This is yet another of the 100 reports they have written on FCC in the past decade. This report goes into a variety of topics so it will take more than 1 post to discuss them all. Due to the timing of the report (it was based on observations from August 2008 to October 2009), it deals mainly with what the new team inherited from its predecessors including some problems that actually go back decades.From the summary, here are some of the issues that we shall discuss today:
- FCC lacks internal policies regarding commissioner access to staff analyses during the decision-making process, and some chairmen have restricted this access. Such restrictions may undermine the group decision- making process and impact the quality of FCC’s decisions.
- In addition, GAO identified weaknesses in FCC’s processes for collecting public input on proposed rules. Specifically, FCC rarely includes the text of a proposed rule when issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to collect public comment on a rule change, although some studies have noted that providing proposed rule text helps focus public input.
- Additionally, FCC has developed rules regarding contacts between external parties and FCC officials (known as ex parte contacts) that require the external party to provide FCC a summary of the new information presented for inclusion in the public record. However, several stakeholders told us that FCC’s ex parte process allows vague ex parte summaries and that in some cases, ex parte contacts can occur just before a commission vote, which can limit stakeholders’ ability to determine what information was provided and to rebut or discuss that information.
The report raises questions about the objectivity of technical analysis from my former OET colleagues:
• Establishing that each commissioner, including the chairman, has equal responsibility and authority in all commission decisions and actions, and has full and equal access to all agency information pertaining to commission responsibilities.
• Balancing commissioner access to staff analyses with the ability of the chairman to direct resource expenditures. For example, although individual commissioners can request information or analyses from NRC staff, if the request requires significant resources to fulfill and questions of priority arise, the office or the commissioner can request the chairman resolve the matter. If the chairman’s decision is not satisfactory to the requesting commissioner or the office, either can bring the matter for a vote before the full commission.
This is very different than recent practice at FCC.
On the NPRM issue, my former OET colleagues actually have probably the best record in the agency for including rules with NPRMs. I used to joke that the former Common Carrier Bureau produced NPRMs without rules and NOIs without questions.
Faithful readers will recognize the ex parte reform has been a recurring theme here. The Commission’s 10/28/09 workshop on these issues shows that these issues are getting top level attention although there has been no substantive action yet. Indeed, our 8/25/08 petition for review of the staff dismissal of an ex parte complaint still has not been acted on and remains totally “out of sight, out of mind” on the Commission’s present website.
We will talk soon about other issues in the report. I strongly recommend that you read it as it contains a wealth of useful background material.
Reboot.FCC.gov Update
Your Blogger's Suggestions Doing Well
In the voting on the FCC suggestion site, your blogger's suggestions seem to be doing rather well.
The top suggestions so far deal are the following:
- Require at least one FCC Commissioner to be an engineer - 30 votes
- Get rid of the BPL - 25 votes
- Automatically renew an Amateur Radio License for a full 10 year term when the operator upgrades - 19 votes
- Get rid of rules that cannot be enforced such as the GMRS license requirement - 18 votes
But the next highest vote is the suggestion shown at the top of the pagee. If you agree, could you surf over to the website, signin in with either your Facebook/Google/Yahoo etc. account or you can create a new UserVoice account, and consider voting for this suggestion and others you find of value. Better yet, input your own ideas.
I received the following reply from Steve Crowley to a previous blog post which I shall repeat here:
"Relatedly, in September, the FCC received a Petition for Rulemaking from a proponent of wireless technologies intended to reduce cell phone use that might cause distracted driving. As far as I know there was no Public Notice from the FCC. I wonder if there have been similar filings, given the current elevation of the issue of distracted driving? Thus, I support your proposal to publish lists of all Petitions that have been filed. The Petition I am referring to can be found on the proponent's web site: http://www.trinitynoble.com/pdf/FCC_Petition_4_Rulemaking.pdf"
This complements well a suggestion by Richard Weil that I have commented on at the FCC site. You might want to support that suggestion also.
Delay at FCC
Docket 10-4: "FCC is Finally Moving on Signal Booster Use" Urgent Communications, 1/13/10
On January 6, FCC at long last started to take action on the long standing issue of cellular "signal boosters" or bidirectional amplifiers. The current management can't be blamed too much for inaction because they inherited this mess and are at least taking action to start solving it. But there are key lessons to be learned here on both FCC procedures and the cost of inaction to many different parties.
Here are some excerpts from the public notice initiating this docket:
By this notice, we seek comment on three Petitions for Rulemaking and two Petitions for Declaratory Ruling (collectively, Petitions) regarding the proper use of signal boosters on frequencies licensed under Parts 22, 24, 27, and 90 of the Commission’s Rules.
...
On August 18, 2005, Bird Technologies, Inc. (Bird Technologies) filed a Petition for Rulemaking to amend section 90.219 to outline specific technical and operational requirements for the use of signal boosters by Part 90 licensees.
...
On November 2, 2007, CTIA, the Wireless Association (CTIA) filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling (CTIA Petition) regarding the proper use of signal boosters in Commercial Mobile Radio Services (CMRS).
...
On September 25, 2008, Jack Daniel DBA Jack Daniel Company filed a Petition for Declaratory Ruling seeking clarification of the Commission’s rules regarding signal boosters.
...
On October 23, 2009, the DAS Forum (a membership section of PCIA-The Wireless Infrastructure Association) filed a Petition for Rulemaking in response to the CTIA Petition stating that a rulemaking proceeding is needed to address the marketing, installation, and operation of signal boosters used in the Cellular Radiotelephone and Personal Communications Services.
...
On November 3, 2009, Wilson Electronics, Inc. (“Wilson”) filed a Petition for Rulemaking asking the Commission to commence a proceeding to amend Part 20 of its rules to establish standards for the certification of signal boosters for subscriber use on CMRS networks by developing equipment certification requirements to ensure boosters are available to the public.
So FCC has a series of petition on a technical wireless issue going back almost 5 years. None of these have been on public notice or were even publicly disclosed by FCC. Indeed, there was little indication other than press coverage that this issue existed. While the CTIA petition was on its website, the other petitions were nowhere to be seen. It is for this reason that your blogger has urged FCC to publish lists of all petitions that have been filed. Note that this suggestion is doing rather well in the voting on the FCC reboot FCC site. (Feel free to add your own vote!) Some quiet staff review time to decide whether a petition is redundant or not within the Commission's jurisdiction makes sense, but there should be weeks, not years!
We note that the NPSTC (a well respected federation of 13 public safety member organizations) 1/06 Newsletter had a lead article entitled "In-Building Coverage BDA Rule Changes Needed Today". Yet the previous FCC management was unable to act. So 2 private firms as well as CTIA and NPSTC urged Commission action years ago and nothing happened.
The recent PN says
When properly installed, these devices, which can either be fixed or mobile, can help consumers, wireless service providers, and public safety first responders by expanding the area of reliable service to unserved or weak signal areas. However, as articulated in the Petitions, improper installation and use of these devices can interfere with network operations and cause interference to a range of communication services.
This is partially correct. But the issue is not just installation. Some manufacturers' amplifiers are designed to prevent oscillations which are the dominant cause of interference to cellular systems. Wilson Electronics states in its petition that all of its amplifiers have used such a design since 2006. But because of FCC inaction this is not a universal practice. So the result of inaction on the CTIA petition has been both the continuing sale of designs that are capable of causing interference, the loss of sales to manufacturers making better (more expensive) amplifiers, and capital formation problems for new companies that seek to make noninterferring equipment. So it has been a lose/lose situation for everyone involved except those making cheap equipment capable of causing interference.
Of course, if CTIA and its membership had been more pragmatic and tried to negotiate a compromise with the amplifier manufacturers to ask FCC jointly for reasonable technical standards then this problem would be much closer to solution. So there is enough blame to go around.
But the key thing to learn here is that the 3000 pages of FCC Rules deal with a highly technical jurisdiction and that they need fine tuning on a regular basis to address problems that were not considered when they were written or new technologies that might be implicitly forbidden. This is not as exciting to the 8th Floor as other issues like broadband and broadcast ownership and content but it also needs timely attention on a continuing basis. The Commission must find a way to keep working on all parts of its jurisdiction all the time and not get sidetracked by the problem du jour. So while Docket 10-4 has now started on its way to resolution, we must find a way to prevent future logjams like this.
The rest of the story ...
Reboot FCC: Initial Results of Website
Suggestion Scorecard
Last week FCC opened the public version of reboot.fcc.gov including a call for suggestions in response to 47 issues. Here is the scorecard of suggestions received as of10:30 AM EST 1/11. The questions "How can the data released on FCC.gov/data be better formatted so as to be more useful to the public?" is by far the most popular. Perhaps being first in the list is a major contributor to this lead.
In any case, vox populi, vox dei, we hope you check up on the suggestions, vote on those that are there, and input your own. Oddly, using your Facebook account is the easiest way to sign in to input information or to vote. No, you can not sign in using your FCBA membership or even your FRN. That says something about the grassroot approach being used here!
Spectrum policy is too important to be left to lobbyists and lawyers!
Get involved!
![[Valid RSS]](valid-rss-rogers.png "Validate my RSS feed")
