NAB Calls for Overhaul of FCC's IT Systems
NAB wants the FCC to overhaul its website, stop tying rules to specific databases and do away with local public notice rules for stations, the trade group said in comments filed Wednesday in docket 24-626. The filing was a response to a December NPRM that sought comments on cleaning up outdated references and processes in broadcast regulations (see 2412100057).
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The FCC’s “mammoth” website is “ripe for thorough review and clean-up,” NAB said. It's “replete with obsolete material, broken links, and is often difficult to navigate or search.” Similarly, the agency's other computer systems, including databases such as the Licensing Management System (LMS), are “often unavailable, unresponsive, slow, or have unannounced changes that cause disruption to routine users,” NAB said. It called for the agency to shift from IT contractors unfamiliar with the purpose of its databases to FCC employees designated as chief data officers with specific responsibility for individual systems.
The FCC should also stop tying forms and rules to specific databases, because the databases change long before the rules do, NAB said. Broadcasters “have followed the Media Bureau’s evolution from paper applications with records kept in manila folders and indexed by 3x5 cards to the Broadcast Application Processing System (BAPS) to the [Consolidated Database System] and now to LMS, yet the rules have never kept current with those changes.”
In addition, NAB suggested that the FCC shouldn’t increase local public notice requirements for noncommercial educational stations but rather eliminate the requirement entirely for commercial and noncommercial stations. “To the extent that there is participation in these proceedings, it inevitably involves entities with a long-standing interest in the station involved. Such entities would be expected to monitor the FCC’s Daily Digest or LMS for activity.” NAB also said the agency should eliminate references in the rules to specific filing windows, relax limits on AM power increase requests, and double the default period for special temporary authorizations caused by technical issues.