LPTV Unicasting DTS Plan Draws Skepticism From Full-Power Broadcasters and Others

The broadband-over-broadcasting delivery plan is backed by one of the largest owners of TV stations and the owners of many low-power TV stations. LPTV may lose channels in a repacking the commission wants to do before holding an incentive auction. Sinclair Broadcast Group, serving or owning 65 full-power TV outlets, wants the FCC rule changes that would be needed to put a “layer” of distributed transmission systems (DTS) “on top of broadcasting unicasting,” said Advanced Technology Vice President Mark Aitken. Widespread broadcaster use of DTS provides “the basis for meeting the individual one-to-one needs” for wireless LTE networks, he told a news conference. Shifting to broadcasters streaming video and other content sent to mobile devices would mean consumers “don’t hit the usage caps” for bandwidth imposed by carriers, and video quality would be better than what carriers send, said broadcast lawyer John Hane of Pillsbury Winthrop, who has represented Sinclair.

The FCC said a transition to new broadcast standards could take time, and there’s a shortage of available frequencies now. Like the 2009 transition to DTV, “any change in broadcast standards would impact current technology and devices and would take an extended period of time,” a commission spokesman said. “We face a spectrum crunch now, and the single biggest step we can take towards solving it is to move forward with voluntary incentive auctions.”

The NAB, which the coalition has told of the plan, had “positive feedback” on it, Aitken said. The association is “studying” the proposal, “which offers interesting ideas worth reviewing,” a spokesman said. He said NAB’s position hasn’t changed, that it has “no quarrel” with incentive auctions as long as broadcasters who don’t participate are “held harmless.” The CEA, which awaits details from the coalition, believes it’s “clear that this plan would entail a significant transition, in contrast to claims, and that it is not exclusive of spectrum auctions,” a spokesman said. “The coalition could bid on spectrum and pursue their approach."

Advocates said the plan would raise billions of dollars for the government over years, and they want Congress to not approve incentive auction legislation and to instead bless their proposal. Broadcasters could be paid for the broadband service, which proponents contend would slash prices maybe 75 percent for each gigabyte of data used, and current FCC rules require them to pay 5 percent of what they get to the government. That’s more than the one-time net auction proceeds of about $6 billion the Congressional Budget Office estimates will go to the Treasury after a public safety network is built, said Aitken and others. “The broadcasters are here today to say OK, we can give the federal government revenue, and we can give you better broadband,” said coalition Chairman Irwin Podhajser. “Congress needs to take a serious look at what they're about to do."

The goal is for full-power broadcasters to “fill in their service areas” with several mid-sized transmission towers, instead of the single one most stations use, Aitken said. That would better penetrate buildings with signals, he said: “The UHF band is the band to do that. The wireless guys know that -- that’s why they covet our spectrum.” The National Religious Broadcasters Association’s TV committee supports the coalition’s plan, said Randy Weiss of the committee. “We wholeheartedly oppose the confiscation or shutdown of any TV station in this country.” LPTV stations are considered secondary services, and the industry worries the FCC won’t make whole those stations that have to move in a repacking (CD Sept 22 p8).

It might cost TV stations $5 billion to widely implement the plan, Aitken said, citing his “back of the napkin scoring” that’s incomplete. “The wireless folks need to be at the table, because this can’t be a one-side solution,” he said: “That standard doesn’t exist today,” though “there are lots of standards you could point to that are close, but we need to go through that standard-setting process.” The DVB T2 standard is close to one the plan might use, he told us. Current FCC rules require the ATSC A/53 and A/153 standards to be used, noted broadcast lawyer Peter Tannenwald of Fletcher Heald, who represents other companies also seeking to use different standards. An ATSC executive had no comment. The FCC looks “forward to reviewing the details of this concept,” an agency spokesman said.

The “newfound interest” in broadband of LPTV holders, many of which have had licenses for 20-plus years, is “curious,” said CTIA Vice President Jot Carpenter. “Perhaps they're hoping for an act of legislative alchemy by which they can turn their secondary licenses into something valuable. This strikes me as nothing more than a self-serving arbitrage play.” Carriers, with a “proven record for delivering affordable broadband service,” have spent billions on auctions of spectrum, which goes to the Treasury, he noted: “This is in stark contrast to the speculative, untested proposal advanced by the LPTV industry” and if those licensees “want to participate in spectrum auctions, they are certainly welcome to do so."

The coalition didn’t unveil its plan earlier because some broadcasters had “a level of hope” that there'd be an alternative to auctions, Aitken told us: “It didn’t happen.” The FCC has said in the past that no one has come up with an alternative, he noted. Using maybe a quarter of the bitstream that a TV station has with its 6 MHz channel could provide 10 Mbps of “robust mobile LTE,” he said. It would cost carriers “pennies” per device that needed new equipment to get the broadband broadcasts, he said. “It’s inconsequential across hundreds of millions of devices,” Aitken said. “One of the hurdles of ATSC mobile today is getting onto your device,” and the coalition wants to work with current wireless infrastructure, he said.

The FCC ought to approve secondary standards rules, so that broadcasters can experiment with ones other than ATSC as long as they don’t cause impermissible interference, said Tannenwald and industry lawyer Robert Rini of Rini Coran. That would “effect the quickest transition to mobile broadband as possible,” said Rini, whose firm represents full-power TV stations and fixed-wireless companies. It’s not “that difficult or complicated” to use standards other than ATSC, said Tannenwald. He said the commission ought to say that TV stations don’t need to use ATSC, as long as they “provide a free programming service to standard receivers.” Given almost “everybody” now has a set-top or other box atop their TV set to get cable, giving consumers any new equipment so they could get broadcasts in other standards wouldn’t be that difficult, Tannenwald said.

Broadband over broadcasting “is speculative,” Rini said, “and if I were in Congress, I'd probably bank more on auction revenues than I would with sharing” services between carriers and broadcasters. “The coalition’s proposal is not much more than Hail Mary pass for a failing industry,” he said of LPTV. “I'm just not sure who’s going to take a flier on a low-power station that’s been authorized on a secondary basis and won’t be accommodated in a repacking plan.” Datacasting is an “immature industry,” and “I don’t think too many broadcasters in this environment are going to take the risk in rebuilding their fundamental equipment,” Rini said. “There are some real concerns about DTS technology,” because without mountains or other natural barriers to block out interference between DTS transmitters, it can be a problem, he said.

Handsets would need new equipment to accommodate the plan, noted engineer Chuck Jackson, who has done wireless and broadcasting work. Changing FCC rules to allow a new standard is “of course a big change,” he said: “I imagine that there might be some controversy associated with that,” he added. “No doubt you can build something like that and make it work, but I don’t think that that would necessarily solve the spectrum crisis,” he said. “It doesn’t increase the capacity for two-way services.”