NAB's Bob Weller Rips FCC's Plan To Cut Field Offices

Weller

NAB VP of Spectrum Policy and former FCC Chief of Technical Analysis BOB WELLER is weighing in on the FCC's proposed cutbacks in field offices, posting on the NAB's Policy Blog that Chairman TOM WHEELER's plan "effectively leaves the FCC in the dark."

Noting that most of the present field offices "already operate with only a skeleton crew," WELLER, who joined the NAB in 2014 after two stints at the Commission (1984-1993 and 2007-2014), asserts, "Even if all of the promises are kept about new training and new equipment and more money for gasoline, and even if the FCC continues to largely ignore all complaints except for interference to public safety (as they do today), the proposed staffing numbers just don’t add up. People take leave, training takes time, on-scene investigations mean in-office paperwork. So, the actual number of field agents available for assignment on a typical day might be half the total, or 16. Sixteen pairs of boots on the ground, doing field investigations for the FCC for the entire country. Think about that."

"Fortunately," WELLER concludes, "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."

Read WELLER's post here.

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