Government Shut-Down Stalls Radio Licensing

The on-going legislative debate in Congress has caused the furlough of 800,000 government employees, and the shut down of many services, including radio frequency applications at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). But in an email to its membership today, the Association of Public Safety Communications Officials (APCO) says it will still process frequency coordination applications from public safety agencies, and then forward the applications on when the FCC returns to full operation. The federal government shut-down began on October 1st, and includes not only FCC headquarters activity, but also the agency’s Web site. Public safety agencies depend upon the Web site’s frequency database to make preliminary searches for available spectrum, to identify adjacent channel users and make other routine inquiries. APCO is the FCC-designated agency for public safety agencies when coordinating new or revised frequency assignment applications. The association says agencies can still file coordination applications at SpectrumWatch.com, and the app will be forwarded to the FCC when the agency’s Universal Licensing System is back on-line.. “It is our goal to make the FCC shutdown as seamless to our members as possible,” APCO said. The FCC does have staff available to handle emergency situations, APCO noted, including special temporary frequency authorizations required by emergency or urgent situations.