Less than hard-and-fast 90- and 150-day time limits for state/local actions on wireless tower permit requests affirmed Cellular tower builders and wireless companies can breathe a sigh of relief: the “shot clock” presumptions imposed by the FCC on local government permitting processes have been upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. As a result, those presumptions – i.e., that state and local officials should ordinarily take no more than 90 days to act on wireless “collocation” applications and 150 days to act on all other wireless siting applications – remain in effect. But in affirming the Commission’s judgment in...

Feds revise triggers for automatic merger and acquisition review Last year saw some successful (NBC/Comcast) and some not so successful (AT&T/T-Mobile) merger applications in the communications sector.  And with hope for continued improvement in the overall economic climate springing eternal, it’s possible that more large scale mergers may be in the pipeline. With that in mind, potential merger/acquisition candidates should be aware that the federal government has performed its annual ritual of announcing the thresholds it will use for automatic federal review of mergers and acquisitions.  If a transaction exceeds a certain amount, both the Department of Justice...

Back in December we reported on the expansion of the Medical Device Radiocommunication Service (MedRadio) to permit use of 24 megahertz of spectrum in the 413-457 MHz range for wideband devices implanted in the body. The new rules have now been published in the Federal Register, which means that they become effective on February 27, 2012.