Regulatory: FCC Readjusts Dates, Deadlines As Shutdown Ends

The FCC has extended or adjusted filing dates and deadlines in the wake of the partial government shutdown, during which Commission systems went dark. For radio amateurs, the biggest impact is for those with vanity call sign applications in the hopper. The Commission said in a October 17 Public Notice that because the Universal Licensing System (ULS) was unavailable for Amateur Service licensees to file vanity call sign applications, the Commission established October 22 as the receipt date for all vanity applications filed between October 1 and October 22.

“Ordinarily, vanity call sign applications are processed on a day-by-day basis, with a random selection procedure used to determine the processing order for applications filed on the same day,” the FCC said. “In order to accommodate the orderly resumption of business, however, vanity call sign applications filed via ULS between October 17 and October 22 will all be processed as if they were filed on October 22, 2013. In addition, any vanity call sign applications that were filed by mail between October 1 and October 22 also will be treated as if they were filed on October 22, 2013.”

The FCC went on to say, “All ULS applications and notifications filed in accordance with the Commission’s rules…that were originally due on October 1, 2013, through and including November 4, 2013, are now due on November 4, 2013.” With the ULS again available, the FCC was encouraging applicants and licensees to file any applications and notifications “as soon as practicable.” Filings due between October 1 and October 6 were due on October 22, 2013, the FCC said. Filings due between October 7 and October 16 will be due 16 days after the original filing date, an extension equivalent to the period of the FCC closure.

This means, for example, that if a filing was due October 8, it now will be due October 24 — an extension of 16 days. “To the extent the revised due dates for filings under this Public Notice fall on a weekend or other Commission holiday,” the FCC continued, “they will be due on the next business day. [A]ny regulatory and enforcement filings that would otherwise be required to be filed between October 17 and November 4…will be due for filing on November 4, 2013 (the first business day following a 16-day period after the Commission’s October 17 reopening).”

The FCC said it would not consider the Commission open for the filing of documents with statutory deadlines until Tuesday, October 22, 2013.

Because Amateur Radio testing was able to continue during the shutdown, exam session paperwork continued to flow into the ARRL VEC. Once the FCC was up and running again, it was not long before application processing resumed, and grants started showing up again, much to the delight of those who had been waiting for new licenses, upgrades, and vanity call sign grants.

“We had approximately 250 sessions and over 1500 forms in the queue,” ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, said as the FCC reopened. By the end of the day, the VEC staff had dispatched its entire backlog to the FCC for processing.