ECFS, ULS and Other FCC Web Applications To Be Down 6 Days Starting Sept. 2
Many of the FCC's most used “public facing applications” will be down for six days that include Labor Day weekend to allow upgrades to the commission's IT systems, the FCC said in a public notice and accompanying blog post from Chief Information Officer David Bray Thursday. The outages are to be from 6 p.m. EDT Sept. 2 to 8 a.m. Sept. 8, the FCC said. The affected systems include the Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) and the Universal Licensing System (ULS), and the FCC is moving deadlines for all proceedings affected by the outage, the PN said. “It sounds as though it will be a lot like the government shutdown,” Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Dan Kirkpatrick told us. In that shutdown, ECFS and other FCC filing systems were essentially offline (see 1310180026).
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The outage also will affect the Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS), the Consolidated Database System (CDBS), the Licensing and Management System (LMS) and others, the PN said. Only the Network Outage Reporting System (NORS), the Consumer Help Center (CHC), and the Disaster Information Reporting System (DIRS) won't be affected, the PN said. “This unavailability of systems will impact the work of any entities requiring access to such systems and information,” the PN said: “For example, Telecommunications Certification Bodies will not be able to upload applications for equipment authorization or issue grants of certification without access to the Equipment Authorization System.”
Any regulatory or enforcement filings that would otherwise be due between Sept. 2 and Sept. 4 will now be due Sept. 9, the PN said. NORS filings aren't affected, the PN said. Deadlines for replies and responsive pleadings that are affected by the outage will be extended by the same number of days, the PN said. If comments on a proceeding were originally due on Sept. 3 and replies 10 days later, the due date for comments would be moved to Sept. 9 and reply comments would be due 10 business days after that, the PN said. The FCC can't move statutory deadlines for filings like petitions for reconsideration, but won't consider the FCC open for filing such documents on the affected dates “because of the disruption and uncertainty associated with the suspension and relaunch of Commission filing systems,” the PN said.
Though the STELAR-mandated deadline for the FCC to act on DBS market modification is Sept. 4, during the outage period, the outage won't affect the FCC's ability to make the deadline, a broadcast attorney told us. “It does not affect the effective dates of Commission actions or other events,” the PN said. “Whether the Commission’s informal 180-day time clock for review of any pending transactions should be suspended during this time will be determined on a case-by-case basis.” STELAR stands for the 2014 distant-signal reauthorization, Satellite Television Extension and Localism Reauthorization Act.
The upgrade is part of the process of transitioning much of the FCC-hosted IT data to the cloud, a spokesman said. “It is our goal to modernize more of the FCC’s legacy IT” to cloud-based platforms, Bray wrote. “This modernization is more flexible, secure and resilient, as well as more cost effective compared to the costs of maintaining on-premise IT solutions.” One of the few systems unaffected by the IT upgrade will be the FCC's online consumer help desk, because it's already hosted on the cloud, the spokesman said. Though Bray's post says the affected systems are being “upgraded,” the spokesman told us it's unlikely that the changes to the system will be noticeable when they go back online Tuesday after Labor Day. Though the spokesman didn't comment on whether the upgrade work is connected with the efforts to redo fcc.gov, Bray pointed to Sept. 30 as the deadline for the revamped website to be launched, in an April blog post.
The outage will likely be more of an inconvenience than a serious problem, communications lawyers said. The six days when the system is unavailable could cause a time crunch in some proceedings further down the line, Kirkpatrick said. For example, regulatory fees will likely be due in September, and though the due date likely won't be during the outage, the six days the systems are down reduces the window in which those fees could be filed, he said. The difficulties caused by the systems being down are reduced by scheduling the outage over Labor Day weekend, Kirkpatrick said. “We understand that this temporary downtime before and during the Labor Day Weekend may be inconvenient for some FCC stakeholders; however, we have taken a number of steps to mitigate this wherever possible,” Bray wrote. Several attorneys interviewed expressed surprise at the relative lack of notice of the planned outage. Along with the blog post and PN, the FCC website trumpeted the announcement with a special red highlighted warning across the top of the home page.