Dear Santa

Dear Santa:

I have been a good boy this year. (I don’t care what my wife says. She’s got this thing about dirty clothes on the floor and a fixation on the position of the toilet seat.)

I’ll try not to take up too much of your time, but without your help, the tree looks a little bare on the bottom and, besides, the presents keep the dog from drinking out of the tree stand. So, here’s my list:

1. New B&I equipment to enter the market. The units should be feature-rich, but they don’t need every doggone bell and whistle to drive the price up. I’m not talking about public safety stuff with the associated price tag. Keep the price down so that the local operators can make a reasonable profit. Every one of them is hoping that you can get more than one or two manufacturers to recognize the enormous demand for this stuff and start pumping it out. It would sell better than Tickle-Me-Elmo.

2. A reasonable lease offer from one of the major tower companies. The contracts they are handing out are designed to ensure negative earnings from carriers. These deals are so one-sided for the tower companies that smaller operators might as well mortgage the business to get on the site. Even then they won’t be sure what they’ll be paying because the language is open-ended on ancillary charges.

3. A decision out of the FCC that says LECs have to stop pussy-footing around on interconnection agreements. I’d like to get some more tangible progress for paging companies that are waiting for the dawn to break over the LEC’s accounting departments. Make them drop the traffic charges and stop trying to rebill the charges by renaming them facility charges.

   OK, I know that at this point you’re beginning to ask what this is all about. After all, most kids ask for a Betsy-Wetsy doll or a new GI Joe with kung fu grip or even a Harry Potter book. By now you might have guessed that I’m 49 years old, and this letter is unusual in that regard.

   But, like any good lawyer, I’ve done my research and checked all the books to see if there are any statutory or common-law bars to my writing and asking for stuff. I have not found any. Additionally, I checked to see if there were any limitations on requests. (You know, “if it doesn’t fit under the tree, then forget it.”)

   To confirm my findings, I reviewed the classic, “Miracle on 34th Street,” wherein one S. Claus aka “Kris” delivered to a girl and her mother a husband/father and a house. Based on the aforementioned evidence, one might reasonably conclude that there is neither an age nor a size limitation associated with this tradition, and that said, S. Claus is thereby estopped from asserting any such bar or limitation, either in law or equity.

   The above considered and for good reasons shown, I continue:

4. A decision out of the FCC that states, once and for all, that it will not upset the entire applecart by ever, in this lifetime or the next, attempting to auction private radio spectrum in the UHF or VHF bands. I want the decision to state, “We realize that our policies in past years have ignored the needs of local operators, small business and regional companies. So, as a way of saying ‘sorry about that’ you have our pledge.”

5. A letter from Congress that explains why it believes that the telecommunications industry should be taxed to death.

6. Someone to explain to me why digital telephony is better than analog. Forget the engineering mumbo-jumbo. I want to know why people think that the quality of the service is better. I don’t get it.

7. A copy of the list of pet companies that the FCC is never going to shaft, come down on or even regulate to any great degree. Mind you, I already have a good idea about most of them. But I’d like it in writing so that I can adjust my business and quit wasting time arguing with the FCC about entities for whom the fix is in.

8. An explanation from someone about why the FCC’s new ULS does not want applicants to renew and modify a license at the same time.

9. I’d also really like to know why the lights on my Christmas tree work fine until I get all of the ornaments on it.

That’s it. When you think about it, Santa, it’s not really that big a deal, is it? OK, if you want to take the easy way out, just give me a house.

Schwaninger, MRT’s regulatory consultant, is the principal in the law firm of Schwaninger & Associates, Washington, which is counsel to Small Business in Telecommunications. Schwaninger is also a member of the Radio Club of America. His email address is rschwaninger@sa-lawyers.net.