[EIDXA] Laura Smith--New FCC Special Counsel

[Jim Spencer]

Interesting insights on the FCC enforcement after Riley Hollingsworth.


>From ARRL Newsletter today:

Laura Smith

The Dayton Hamvention was one of the first events Smith has attended in her 
role as Special Counsel. Cross introduced Smith, explaining that he used to 
work for her and that she was "one of the best people that we possibly could 
get for this job, because before she came to the Wireless Bureau, she had 
worked in mass media. After she had been in the Wireless Bureau, Laura had 
been the president of a trade association in Washington. Many of the issues 
that come up with other entities using amateur spectrum are entities that 
are either in mass media services or in land-mobile services and they are 
basically lusting after your bands. So we are fortunate now that when 
someone calls up, Laura has this breadth of knowledge of not only what the 
amateur stuff is, but where [land-mobile and mass media services] actually 
really should belong. And she can counsel them very gently that they need to 
get licensed here and not, you know, where they think they are. This is 
something you don't
  see. Believe it or not, this is a tremendous help to you."

He mentioned that Smith plans to stay in this position for the long haul: 
"So if you have any ideas about a short-timer or think you're going to get 
away with it, plan on about 15 years down the road. In the meantime, behave 
yourselves!"

Smith explained that when she took over the amateur enforcement position 
earlier this year, the job had changed a bit from when Hollingsworth was in 
the office. "This job used to be in the Spectrum Enforcement Division down 
in DC; it was a remote position in a DC office," she explained. "It is no 
longer in that Division. I am actually a Field Agent. I'm attached to the 
FCC Field Office, I'm in the Northeast Region and my supervisor is the 
Regional Director for the Northeast Region." She told the crowd that she has 
spent a large portion of her time going through all the files that had 
accumulated, about 430 cases, while the position was vacant.

She explained the different types of complaints her office receives, such as 
complaints dealing with criminal investigations, technical violations, 
harassment and language complaints, malicious interference complaints and 
unlicensed users.

Smith also handles RFI complaints. Saying that these complaints are 
"ultimately going to be the most troublesome," she explained that there are 
two kinds of RFI complaints. "The first type of RFI complaint I get are the 
ones where your neighbors are complaining about you. You guys are causing 
interference to their television or to their radios or their telephone. The 
Commission generally tells them if you are a licensed amateur operator 
operating in the parameters of your license, then the Part 15 device that 
you are causing interference to is subject to that interference, and the 
rules state that very clearly. We suggest that they either work with you or 
they get a filter; those are the two suggestions."

Smith, in cooperation with the ARRL Lab, also handles utility line 
interference complaints. "This one, you would think, would be easy to 
resolve -- the power line is causing interference, the utility will come out 
and fix it and everything will be fine. Not quite so easy," she explained. 
"Those of you that have been experiencing it for 3, 4, 5, 10, 12 years know 
that in fact, that is not what happens. What I am discovering is that the 
utilities quite simply don't know how to fix the problem. They can't 
identify the noise. What they will do is they will go out and will find 15 
sources of noise. They will fix these 15 sources of noise and then they will 
come back to me with this detailed list of these 15 sources of noise that 
they have fixed. Yea! We're all done. No -- they haven't fixed your noise. 
So they don't quite understand the concept of 'Don't just run out and fix 
everything you see, that's irrelevant to the amateur.' The amateur wants you 
to fix their noise."

Smith described that the first step the utilities need to do is to go to the 
amateur's house and listen to the noise and determine exactly what they're 
hearing. "This way, when they fix it, you can ultimately figure out if you 
have in fact fixed their noise. I'm trying to figure out a way with the Lab 
as to how we can best tell the utilities that they really need to think 
about how their processes work and what we can do to educate them so they 
can get out and fix this."

Smith has also given utility companies time limits to fix the noise 
complaints. "I am telling them, 'If you go out and you can't fix it, every 
two weeks you have to report back to me in writing why you can't fix it.' 
Utilities are, generally speaking publicly traded companies, so what happens 
is that they have a Board of Directors that they answer to. Those people are 
not going to want them to waste time and energy writing this crazy woman in 
Gettysburg every two weeks a detailed report. And believe you me, if they 
miss their deadline, I call them and tell them 'You've missed your deadline. 
I need your report.' I have spoken to more heads of utilities in the last 
three weeks than I ever care to speak to again. They have no qualms about 
calling me, saying 'We can't meet the deadline.' And I explain to them 
that's fine, I'll just write up this nice little letter [saying] you can 
write your check to the federal government."

Smith suggested to the amateur community "that we as a collective -- you 
guys and me -- we can have a great relationship, we can do this the easy 
way. You guys can, in fact, follow the rules and remember that when you 
signed up to become an amateur, you actually committed to adhere to the 
Commission's rules. I'm going to strongly suggest that you hold to that. If 
you don't we can do this the difficult way, and I am more than willing to do 
that if it comes down to it."

Questions and Answers

Cross and Smith then took questions from the audience. They concerned 
grandfathering Advanced class license holders to Extra class, enforcing 
Amateur Radio rules on stations originating outside the US, what type of 
internal review is required before a Notice of Apparent Liability is issued, 
keeping undesired hams off a repeater system, issues with D-STAR repeaters 
allowing Internet content to be carried on amateur frequencies and 
establishments that sell 10 meter radios disguised as 11 meter radios.

Smith also told the crowd why she has not yet become a licensed Amateur 
Radio operator: "My father-in-law is Richard Smith. He is the former Chief 
of the Field Operations Bureau. The Field Operations Bureau was the 
precursor to the Enforcement Bureau. When Dick started his career at the 
FCC, he worked in the LA Field Office as an engineer; one of the duties that 
he had while he was out there was to administer the Amateur Radio tests. His 
expertise just so happened to be in the Code. He is an incredible operator. 
And so when I decided to take this job, I did not want to run out and get my 
license before I took the job for a lot of reasons. Not the least of which 
is I felt it would be a sham -- I wasn't an amateur before I took the job, I 
didn't want you to think that I was selling you so short that I was going to 
run out and get my license to try and validate myself for this industry. 
Instead, I said that I would wait and take the exam later and become an 
amateur as I got to know the community. When I told the story to Dick and I 
said I was thinking about getting my license, he said to me, 'You will not 
get your license until you can pass the code part of the test.' 
Unfortunately, he followed that up with a caveat, which was 'I will be there 
to oversee the administration of the test to determine whether or not you 
are competent and qualified to be an amateur.' So I have to learn code -- I 
obviously do not know it." Smith said she plans on learning CW this summer, 
along with her six year old daughter.