NPR, NCTA Again Raise Caution Flags Over C-Band Sharing
Cable and broadcast interests continue to air with FCC officials their worries about terrestrial wireless use of C-band. In a docket 17-183 filing Thursday, NPR recapped a meeting officials had with Chairman Ajit Pai where it made similar arguments to…
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those it made to Commissioners Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O'Rielly (see 1805290018) that sharing C-band with commercial wireless services will cause harmful interference to public radio earth station downlinks, and that sharing isn't possible with current technology. NCTA, in a separate filing, recapped a meeting with staffers including Wireless Bureau Chief Don Stockdale, International Bureau Chief Tom Sullivan and Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. NCTA said neither fiber nor Ku-band spectrum is a good substitute for C-band and such a substitution wouldn't be feasible for its C-band operations such as cable TV distribution. NCTA expressed concerns about band repacking costs and technical issues such as earth station filtering. It told the FCC it would be premature to endorse any particular proposal before there's a comprehensive record about how incumbent C-band services will be protected and incumbent users will be made whole. Representatives participating in the meeting were from NCTA, CBS, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Enterprises, Discovery, Disney, 21st Century Fox, General Communication and Univision Communications. NCTA earlier said many questions still need addressing (see 1806010032).