Subject: [NEXTEL-1] Low Power Licenses Fail to Meet Community Needs

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 03 Jul 2003 18:41:32 -0400

Low Power Licenses Fail to Meet Community Needs
By Willie D. Jones

2 July 2003—In the years since 1978, when the U.S. Federal Communications
Commission stopped offering Class D radio licenses for non-commercial stations
operating below 10 watts and forced most remaining stations to broadcast above 100
watts—basically eliminating the community radio niche—hundreds of radio pirates
took to the air. Unlicensed stations gave their take on local news, discussed
politics, and played music not heard on commercial stations.  Some activists began
broadcasting without a license as an act of civil disobedience against government
policies they felt were making an erstwhile democratic medium off limits to the
average citizen.

After hundreds of raids on pirate stations and the seizures of low-power
transmitters that, when unlicensed, are essentially contraband, the FCC extended
community radio advocates an olive branch. In January 2000 the agency announced
that it would begin offering low-power FM licenses to community organizations. But
according to the Prometheus Radio Project, a Philadelphia, Pa–based team of
low-power radio activists, "we did not win a fundamental change in the system that
made it more fair and open—just a brief moment when community groups can claim a
thin sliver of the airwaves for local use." When asked to explain this statement,
Pete Tri Dish, the group’s technical director, said, "There are no forms you can
fill out today to get on the air." He explained that the FCC opened a small window
of opportunity during which community groups could apply for licenses to run
stations operating between 10 and 100 watts. But that window is now closed, and,
as things stand currently, the FCC is not obligated to reopen it. Actually, there
were five windows, since the FCC divided the country into five regions with 10
states in each, and set staggered application periods. The first of them began in
April 2000 and the last closed near the end of 2001. When they will reopen is
anybody’s guess.

The LPFM rules, as implemented, are too limited on other fronts as well, say radio
activists. Not only are low-power licenses not a permanent part of the
communications landscape in the United States, even those who had the desire to
get an LPFM license when they were available found the pickings too slim. In many
big cities like New York, where the population is diverse and its divergent
interests would seem to make so-called microbroadcasters a necessity, there is no
room for low power stations. Amendments to the low-power-radio rules necessitated
by an act of Congress resulted in very few frequencies being available for
potential low-power licensees—even those wanting to broadcast below 50 watts. In
an important federal court case, where the plaintiff, Greg Ruggiero, sued the FCC
in order to have rules barring former pirates from getting LPFM licenses
overturned, the opinion noted that, "Ruggiero is a resident of New York City
where, all concede, no spectrum space is available for low-power stations."

All told, about 3300 applications were submitted. But according to data available
on the FCC’s Web site, nearly 2700 are still pending. Of those, a great number
will be denied because there are so few licenses available that many groups find
themselves competing for the same broadcast spectrum. For example, six groups in
San Bernadino, Calif., have applied for use of 105.5 FM, while the right to
broadcast on 99.1 FM in Madison, Wisc., is being sought by nine groups. In these
cases, and the many others like them, the FCC will give the contestants an
opportunity to work out an arrangement to share the frequency. Should they fail to
reach an agreement, the agency will award the license to one of them, leaving the
others without access to the airwaves.

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org

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