FCC Wireless Bureau granted Port Authority of N.Y. and N.J. extra...

attacks on World Trade Center (WTC). Bureau’s Public Safety & Private Wireless Div. granted additional time to return stations to operating status without risk of forfeiting licenses for permanent discontinuance of operation. Port Authority last month sought temporary FCC waiver of rules related to its Part 90 land mobile service and Part 101 microwave radio service stations that used WTC as transmitting or receiving site. Part 90 and Part 101 licenses cancel automatically when operation permanently discontinues, which is defined as at least one year of nonoperation. One threshold that licensee must meet under FCC’s waiver standards is that “unique or unusual” factual situation exists in which applying rules would run counter to public interest. “We conclude that the attacks on the World Trade Center clearly constitute a unique and unusual circumstance,” order said. Bureau said it already had granted 6-month waiver of Part 101 rules to Winstar, which had 13 fixed microwave services stations on WTC. “The Port Authority faces a major challenge and a higher hurdle” than Winstar in reconstructing its WTC stations “given that its headquarters were once located at the World Trade Center and the extent of its network,” FCC said. Port Authority, which holds public safety licenses, also used WTC stations to operate its network of transport, terminal and commercial facilities throughout N.Y.C. area. While Port Authority didn’t ask for specific amount of extra time, FCC said it granted fixed waiver term “to avoid any ambiguity concerning the status of the licenses and to allow relicensing of any spectrum that the Port Authority may later decide is not necessary for its future operations.” Agency said Port Authority had started to reestablish operational status of some of its stations that were destroyed and temporarily or permanently had relocated some WTC stations elsewhere.