According to NACo, the FCC issued a ruling on November 18 that will require counties to act on wireless co-location applications within 90 days and all other wireless siting requests within 150 days.  A county which fails to act within the required timeframe would be presumed to have violated the “failure to act within a reasonable time” clause of the federal Telecommunications Act of 1996 and could be sued by wireless applicant.

As NACo notes on its website:

 In short, the FCC’s decision could be problematic for local governments, both in terms of the immediate, practical effects it will have on counties’ ability to review and act on wireless-siting applications, and also in terms of setting a precedent allowing the FCC to inject itself into virtually any communications provider-related local zoning and right-of-way issue in the future.