Shutdown Delaying Rollout of New Devices, TIA Officials Say
New product introductions are in danger of being delayed by the government shutdown, TIA officials told us Tuesday. Products by TIA members need certification from FCC-approved telecommunication certification bodies (TCBs), but those labs can’t submit their reports to the now-shuttered FCC websites for ultimate approval. Without FCC approval, manufacturers can’t ship their products. “No new devices of any kind that need FCC approval can be marketed in the U.S. until the shutdown ends,” TIA General Counsel Danielle Coffey said.
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It “impacts all our members that are in the product approval process to get products to market,” said TIA President Grant Seiffert. Part 15 interference compliance, Part 68 compliance for equipment connected to the public switched telephone network, and handset approval are all on hold, he said. “If you don’t get the good seal of approval, you cannot sell into the market,” Seiffert told us. “It’s already started hurting them,” Coffey said of TIA’s members. Samsung, which has a new product coming out, has been “up in arms” about the delay, Coffey said. Motorola Mobility and Intel have also expressed concerns, she said.
It’s hard to quantify the impact of a one-week delay, but it can ripple throughout product timelines, Seiffert said. Companies have detailed product launch plans, and any delays can affect sales and revenue, he said. “From a strategic planning sense, if they're launching a new product and cannot, that has a Slinky effect on everything down that supply chain.” A longer delay could even affect what’s on the market for consumers to buy during the holiday season, Seiffert said.
The FCC sent a “Government Shutdown Memo” to TCBs in late September, warning of the potential stoppage (http://bit.ly/19fEFrl). “In the unlikely event of a government shutdown access to all the FCC systems including the Equipment Authorization System will be completely suspended,” wrote Rashmi Doshi, chief of the FCC Laboratory Division. “This would mean that Telecommunications Certification Bodies will not be able to upload applications for equipment authorization nor issue grants of certification. Similarly, the [knowledge database] system will not be available for processing any Permit-But-Ask (PBA) inquiries. The FCC systems will become unavailable immediately after a government shutdown is announced.” It’s not just the FCC systems that are unavailable, Coffey told us. Doshi is “not even answering his phone,” she said. “He’s just not there."
"What we'd like to see, ideally, is a contingency plan,” Coffey said. Normally, the FCC has 30 days to challenge a TCB approval. That 30-day clock starts ticking when a TCB submits its review. With the FCC’s authorization system down during the shutdown, that 30-day clock never starts ticking. Under TIA’s plan, a TCB approval would give companies like Samsung the go-ahead to ship their products -- sort of like a “patent-pending kind of situation,” Coffey said. Once the FCC is back up and running, then the 30-day challenge period could commence, she said.
The shutdown is also hitting TIA’s “Policy Day” hard, with several government officials canceling their Wednesday appearances. An addendum handed out to conference attendees Tuesday spelled out the casualties: FCC acting Chairwoman Mignon Clyburn; Rep. Doris Matsui, D-Calif.; Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for International Communications and Information Policy Daniel Sepulveda; and Patrick Gallagher, director of the National Institute of Standards & Technology.
TIA came to Washington because what Washington does matters to TIA’s industry, Seiffert said. “Our members’ expectations [were] to be able to educate and talk to and learn themselves from those decision makers,” he said. “If there’s not a conversation then we're talking to ourselves. We'll regroup."
"We hope it doesn’t roll on much longer,” Seiffert said of the shutdown. “We need the business of the industry to get done.” The shutdown is also delaying important policy decisions affecting broadband deployment and the spectrum auctions, he said, and a NIST response to the cybersecurity executive order is also being delayed. “We were hoping to learn what the details of that report were going to be,” Seiffert said.