FCC to Suspend Most Operations on Thursday if Government Shutdown Continues

By Tom Butts
published

WASHINGTON—As the federal government that started Dec. 22 continues, the FCC has announced that it will suspend most operations in the middle of the day on Thursday, Jan. 3. At that time, employees will have up to four hours to complete an orderly shutdown of operations.

However, work required for the protection of life and property will continue, as will any work related to spectrum auctions, which is funded by auction proceeds. In addition, the Office of the Inspector General will continue operations until further notice.

Later today (Wednesday) the Commission will release a Public Notice detailing the effects the suspension of operations will have, including on electronic filing and database systems, filing deadlines, regulatory and application fee payments, transaction shot clocks, and more. The Public Notice will be available on the Commission’s website, www.fcc.gov.

The FCC’s overall shutdown plan is available at https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-plan-orderly-shutdown-december-2018. The resumption of normal Commission operations will also be announced on the FCC’s website.

Tom Butts
Tom Butts

Tom has covered the broadcast technology market for the past 25 years, including three years handling member communications for the National Association of Broadcasters followed by a year as editor of Video Technology News and DTV Business executive newsletters for Phillips Publishing. In 1999 he launched digitalbroadcasting.com for internet B2B portal Verticalnet. He is also a charter member of the CTA's Academy of Digital TV Pioneers. Since 2001, he has been editor-in-chief of TV Tech (www.tvtech.com), the leading source of news and information on broadcast and related media technology and is a frequent contributor and moderator to the brand’s Tech Leadership events.