[SFDXA] FCC Resets Filing Deadlines, Receipt Dates in Wake of Government Shutdown

[Bill]

FCC Resets Filing Deadlines, Receipt Dates in Wake of Government Shutdown
01/30/2019

As it attempts to dig out from beneath a blizzard of applications from 
all services, the FCC has reset some filing deadlines and established 
new receipt dates. Certain electronic filing and database systems, 
including the Universal Licensing System (ULS) that Amateur Radio 
licensees use, were unavailable or not supported from January 3 until 
January 28, 2019. As the shutdown began, the FCC had announced that all 
filings due during the suspension of operations or on the day that 
normal operations resumed would become due on the business day following 
the resumption of normal operations. When it reopened January 28, 
however, the FCC further suspended filing deadlines until January 30.

The FCC said filings due between January 3 and January 7 inclusive will 
be due on January 30. Filings that would otherwise be required to be 
filed between January 8 and February 7 will be due on February 8.

The FCC said all ULS applications and notifications originally due on 
January 3 through February 8 inclusive are now due on February 8, 2019.

“In addition, all ULS filings that were held during the lapse in funding 
through January 25, as well as any other ULS filings that were held from 
January 26 through January 29, will be considered received on January 
29,” the FCC said. “[D]ue to the large volume of filings submitted 
during the lapse in funding, these filings will be entered into ULS in 
batches (and assigned a January 29 receipt date) over a period of a few 
weeks.”

Vanity call sign applications filed via ULS or by mail between January 3 
and January 29 will be treated as filed on January 29, the FCC said. 
Ordinarily, vanity call sign applications are processed on a daily 
basis, with a random selection procedure used to determine the 
processing order for applications filed on the same day. The FCC said 
changes in receipt dates were made “in order to accommodate the orderly 
resumption of business.”