"I was wondering if anyone has first-hand experience with the FCC formal
complaint process? I'm especially interested in the outcome of such
cases and what the typical lawyer fees are."
I'm still reading up, but...
Formal vs. informal, from what I see on the FCC website, along with
fees, mention things such as telecommunications service providers,
internet providers, television, satellite services, affected consumers,
et cetera.
Until today, I never heard formal vs informal, and for complaints
regarding interference to amateur radio stations, still find references
to call, write, or fill out the online form, with no mention at all of
"formal", "informal", or fees.
I, personally think, so far, people are just looking up "complaint", in
association with FCC, and looking at the wrong things, or, more
realistically, since there is more general public than there are hams,
and online searches provide results based on hits, we're going to get
something totally unrelated, by default, and nature of design. In
short, 5 million average consumers will drive the results seen by a few
dozen hams. One needs to ignore the first, second, or third result, and
review the first few PAGES, or more, for what applies, rather than what
a search engine algorithm thinks is popular.
(Personal gripe. Remember when search results provided EVERYTHING? Now
they have a limit of something like 2,000 hits. Many times in the past,
I found myself spending days, even weeks, going over 10 - 20 thousand
hits, and actually finding what I wanted. No wonder we can't find
anything any more! If google says there are 20,237, 418 results, then
dang it, let me see ALL of them, I can decide how far to go, and at what
point the results become less likely to have what I want! So many old
saved links were for things like, "Page 674 of 9,872", meaning at 100
hits per page, I had 987,200 results to go over, and was part way through.)
General info relating to amateur radio complaints:
https://www.fcc.gov/reports-research/guides/amateur-radio-complaints
Form for filing interference complaint to amateur radio:
https://consumercomplaints.fcc.gov/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=38844
And, I found this information on the FCC site, although slightly more
confusing, but THIS site, with less wasted words, mentions the "formal"
complaints, with fees, however, it is for utilities, and service
providers, NOT amateur radio:
https://corporate.findlaw.com/law-library/how-to-file-a-complaint-with-the-federal-communications.html
It would appear the formal legal process regarding complaints against
gov't run public utilities, and for-profit service providers, somehow
became the new way to file complaints against interference to licensed
amateur radio stations.
Kurt
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