FCC Should Auction D Block if Legislation Not Passed Soon, McDowell Says

"It’s my hope that should Congress desire to act, they do so soon,” McDowell said about legislation allowing the FCC to share proceeds between the Treasury and broadcasters when auctioning TV spectrum. Asked if the commission should take further action on white spaces if Capitol Hill doesn’t act soon, he said yes. “We're playing kind of musical chairs of relocating people in the neighborhood” of where the devices would operate in the TV band, and there’s the question of whether there will be a dedicated channel for them, McDowell said in a Q-and-A.

"The chipmakers and other companies that want to use white spaces devices are in stand down” mode, not knowing what’s to come with the TV band, McDowell said. “A lot of the planning is on hold in Silicon Valley.” FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski “deserves a lot of credit” for moving forward on an order last year on white spaces that has led to the proposed start of various databases, McDowell said. “We should just continue on the path that was set out then, the status quo,” he added. “There have been a lot of holiday seasons that have come and gone, and I wish I had white spaces devices to buy for my kids. … So let’s get on with it."

McDowell still wants the D block auctioned commercially, with as few restrictions as possible, he said. With it being almost four years since the 2007 FCC order on auctioning the D block, if Congress doesn’t act soon on that slice of spectrum, it should be auctioned by the commission “quickly,” McDowell said. He noted that on spectrum legislation, as in other areas, “Congress tells me what to do. I don’t tell Congress what to do. I don’t try to lobby Congress."

Spectrum “greenfield” development is an important part of unlicensed, reallocated spectrum use, CTIA Vice President Christopher Guttman-McCabe said on another panel. With repacking of TV spectrum, there may not be enough remaining for unlicensed white space use, he said.

Although some industry officials have called to develop a band of white spaces, too many people using white spaces devices may make the spectrum unusable, NAB General Counsel Jane Mago said. Repacking may reduce the amount of white space available for licensed and unlicensed users, she said. The NAB’s main concern is the reduction of audience size and the degradation of broadcast services that could occur in a repacking, Mago said.

There’s a good chance Congress will allow the FCC to hold an incentive auction of TV stations’ spectrum this year, with broadcasters and the government sharing the proceeds, MF Global analyst Paul Gallant said on an earlier panel. “There’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic Congress could get something done, even on this significant [issue] and in this time frame,” he said. “There is some urgency on this,” even though Capitol Hill usually doesn’t act on legislation of this kind within a year, Gallant said.

The commission can take various actions regarding spectrum on its own, without new law, said panelists from consumer electronics, wireless and public interest bodies. But that doesn’t mean the FCC will move full-steam ahead without legislation, the said. The commission “has some tools in its toolbag it can use independently of incentive auctions, which T-Mobile does support,” said Vice President Kathleen Ham. There are “too many” mobile satellite services “licensees, and there isn’t enough demand for that type of service,” she said. “Whereas there is lots of demand for terrestrial mobile broadband use."

"The FCC has a lot of authority” in dictating the channel positions that TV stations must transmit on, said Senior Vice President Andrew Schwartzman of the Media Access Project. “It could tell broadcasters, ‘This is your 6 MHz'” channel, he said. “'Here is where we are going to put you.'” But Schwartzman said he doesn’t envision that happening. “One of the things that I think is going to be necessary, for all the players in this space, is that compromise is going to be necessary and no one is going to get all they want,” he said.

There’s no reason spectrum can’t be both auctioned and inventoried, said Ham and CEA Vice President Julie Kearney. Ham said FCC officials such as Julius Knapp, chief of the Office of Engineering and Technology, already “know exactly where the spectrum is.” The commission has only 50 MHz in the pipeline to be released, so “the U.S. really has to step up to the plate and make much more spectrum available,” she said.

A “tablet revolution” is on, as seen from the more than 100 devices of the kind introduced at the CEA’s Consumer Electronics Show in January, Kearney said. By 2014, 70 percent of all CE devices will be connected to the Internet, she said. “This is just proof positive that we have devices that demand a lot of bandwidth. People are going mobile. They are going pocketable.” The point of a recent paper from the CEA and CTIA, estimating that incentive auctions could raise a net $33 billion in the biggest markets, “was to not make judgments, but to sort of start a dialogue,” Kearney said. “We do feel it’s a good starting point. I do know that other groups like the High Tech Spectrum Coalition are releasing their papers soon.”