Applicants for low-power television licenses that filed during Auction No. 81 have until March 5, 2004, to resolve mutual exclusivities through engineering solutions and enter into settlement agreements, the FCC Media Bureau and Wireless Telecommunications Bureau announced Dec. 5.
Once the window closes, no settlement or engineering solutions will be accepted.
About 2,900 LPTV applications filed during the auction are pending. Many consist of mutually exclusive LPTV applications to provide service to rural and underserved areas with over-the-air television service.
According to a statement from both bureaus, many of these “groups contain geographically-dispersed ‘daisy chain’ applications that overlap only partially, and may present opportunities for engineering solutions to avoid mutual exclusivity. Settlements by certain applications in such groups may eliminate mutual exclusivity among additional applications in the same group.”
During the period that the window is open, applicants have the chance to discuss possible settlements or resolve mutual exclusivities through technical solutions. When the final settlement period is finished, however, anti-collusion restrictions will go into effect preventing further collaboration.
Parties that resolve mutual exclusivities through engineering solutions should submit an amended Section I, the Tech Box of Section III and Question 12 of Section III of FCC Form 346 (June 2000 version), according to the statement of the bureaus.
For more information, please visit: http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-03-3881A1.pdf.
