Updated 9/25/2019 at 5:15PM: REC has received word from FCC Staff that LMS is functional now.
Whenever a big corporation makes a systems conversion or update, it's their "big day" and sometimes that "big day" turns into a big problem such as what happened in 1990 when a bad release by DSC Communications caused a massive failure in the nation's Signaling System 7 (SS7) network bringing telephone calls to a nearly complete halt or regional issues such as the conversion of an ordering system used by USWEST Communications in the late 90s which prevented customer orders for several days before having to be backed-out and retried at a later date.
Today, Wednesday, September 25, 2019 was supposed to be the FCC's "big day" in the Media Bureau. The day when the FCC was moving all FM modification and license application filings from the aging Centralized DataBase System (CDBS) to the Licensing and Management System (LMS). The LMS system has been used primarily for most television applications as well as for radio ownership reports. Earlier this year, the FCC announced that all license renewals and for full-service stations, EEO reports would be filed in LMS. Today was supposed to be the day when LMS was going to be expanded for other FM applications.
Just after midnight, like clockwork, the access to the various FM forms used for modifications and licenses was removed from CDBS.
After the maintenance window, which normally takes place on Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings from LMS, the FM functionalty was supposed to be added. While the functionality used to request modifications, licenses and original construction permits was added, the page that is used to manage the entry of the FM applications was not there meaning that LMS users reached a "404" not found message.
This morning, REC had noticed the issue and reported it to staff. REC conducted test cases for LPFM, FM translators, FM boosters, full-service NCE and full-service commercial FM and they had all failed due to the missing page. As of 2PM on Wednesday, the "404" errors will still occuring. As a result, none of the FM applications that were intended to be moved from CDBS to LMS could not be filed. As of the time of this writing, the FCC has not released any public notice to address the issue.
This outage may be of particular concern to construction permit grantees that have permits that expire today and they need to file license to cover applications. If the FCC handles this issue like previous systems issues, they will issue a public notice to state how many days the filing of these applications will be extended.
This outage is not affecting the ability for an LPFM or other broadcast station from filing a renewal application and for full-service stations, the ability to file EEO and onwership reports.
This is a developing issue and we will update as more information comes in.
