The Tortoise and the FCC...and the FCC Loses!

Once in a while -- well, more than once in a while! -- the FCC takes an action that makes you wonder. More specifically, that makes you wonder when the FCC will get serious about implementing real agency institutional reform.

Case in point.  The FCC's Wireless Bureau just issued an order approving applications filed by AT&T Mobility and KanOkla Telephone Association to assign AT&T two of KanOkla's 700MHz licenses in two local markets, one in Kansas and another in Oklahoma.

The good news is that the FCC finally approved the assignment of these two local market licenses.

The bad news? The assignment applications were filed on September 4, 2014. So it took the Commission almost a full year to grant the approvals -- even though the applications were not opposed. The FCC order states that the agency "received no filings in response to the Accepted for Filing Public Notice." In another place it reiterates that no petitions to deny or comments were filed regarding the applications.

You can read the FCC's 11-page order and decide for yourself whether it should have taken the FCC a year to act on unopposed applications relating to two local wireless markets in Kansas and Oklahoma.

I've already decided that it just shouldn't take that long.

We all know the story about the tortoise and the hare. The FCC's job is not to make the tortoise look good so often.