Just when it seemed the FCC would waive anything as long as there was no waste, fraud or abuse, they've found a deadline it won't waive without a compelling reason: the deadline for filing an appeal. Yesterday they denied 104 appeals that were filed late.
That seems like a reversal of precedent to me, but I'm too lazy to go back and try to find late appeals that were granted in the past.
On the one side, it seems odd to say that you can file a Form 471 late for no good reason, but you can't file an appeal late.
But I think the FCC may have been forced into this, because the appeals thing was getting out of hand. Some of the appeals that they denied were filed years after the appeals deadline, because applicants saw the about-face that the FCC made with Bishop Perry, and realized that under the new kinder/gentler FCC, they could win an appeal. And I have seen pitches from consulting companies offering to remedy past mistakes by appealing to the FCC well after the fact.
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