WASHINGTON-Five percent of the nation’s broadcasters are holding the nation hostage by refusing to give back their spectrum, which has been allocated to public safety, charged Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.).
“Because of broadcaster intransigence, some 5 percent of the TV stations in the U.S. are holding the rest of America hostage by refusing to move their channels off the spectrum promised to first responders,” said Harman, before the Senate Commerce Committee as the panel examined the digital TV transition.
The broadcast lobby was absent from the hearing by its own choice, said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. After the hearing, McCain said he wanted a broadcast executive rather than a NAB lobbyist to testify, but only an NAB representative offered to attend the hearing.
TV broadcasters were given an extra channel (6 megahertz) of spectrum to convert to digital technology. After the transition, that spectrum is to be auctioned, with 24 megahertz being set aside for public safety. Most of it has yet to be auctioned.
TV broadcasters must give back their extra spectrum by Dec. 31, 2006, or when 85 percent of the homes in their viewing areas are capable of receiving digital signals, whichever is later.
An economist critical of government control of spectrum said that 85-percent threshold is holding up the transition. “The 85-percent rule is actually the kill switch on the transition,” said Thomas Hazlett, former chief economist of the Federal Communications Commission, now the senior fellow at the Center for a Digital Economy at the Manhattan Institute.
Counting to 85 percent is not as easy as it sounds, said Sen. John Sununu (R-N.H.).
The FCC’s Media Bureau has been shopping around a proposal that would change the way the FCC arrives at the 85-percent threshold, but would not end the transition by January 2007.
The Media Bureau proposal gets at the heart of the relationship between broadcasters and cable operators. It would allow broadcasters in October 2008 to elect to have their entire digital signals carried by cable operators instead of the current rule, which requires cable operators to carry only broadcasters’ analog signals. The cable company then would choose whether to broadcast only in digital and require its customers to obtain a digital set-top box or to download the broadcaster’s digital signal into an analog signal.
Either way, the broadcaster would be broadcasting in digital and “85 percent” of the homes in its market would be capable of receiving a digital signal, requiring the broadcaster to give back its analog signal as of Jan. 1, 2009.
Meanwhile, the high-tech industry is itching to get its hand on that spectrum. Patrick Gelsinger, chief technology officer and senior vice president of Intel Corp., said soon, “every electronic device will include a radio.”
Later during the hearing, Gelsinger admitted that while the high-tech industry would like access to the TV spectrum as soon as possible and two years is the best alternative, it might take longer.
If the DTV transition ends sooner than Jan. 1, 2009, it would be a burden for consumers who watch free over-the-air TV, said Kenneth Ferree, chief of the FCC’s Media Bureau.
Rep. Joe Barton on June 2 suggested the U.S. could implement a “Berlin” subsidy plan to end the DTV transition. Last August, the German City of Berlin converted to DTV and the government subsidized digital set-top boxes so subscribers could continue to receive their favorite shows.
Barton said he believes that digital set-top boxes would cost $50 if purchased in bulk, and they could be paid for using auction revenues.
Later, Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, said his panel expects to hold a hearing on the subsidy program in July.
Along with policy issues, the mechanics of spectrum management-especially the relationship between the FCC and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration-are under increased scrutiny.
The General Accounting Office late last month released a report that concluded the existing spectrum-management regime does not promote efficient use of the nation’s airwaves and needs repair, a finding that comes as the Bush administration prepares to release its own spectrum findings.
“The current structure and management of spectrum use in the United States does not encourage the development and use of some spectrum-efficient technologies,” said GAO.
The report-based on spectrum usage of nine key federal agencies-was requested by Rep. Thomas Davis III (R-Va.), chairman of the House Government Reform Committee, and Rep. Adam Putnam (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Government Reform technology and information policy subcommittee. GAO is working on several other spectrum reports requested by the full committee.
“Because the spectrum allocation framework largely compartmentalizes spectrum by types of services (such as aeronautical radio navigation) and users (federal, nonfederal, and shared), the capability of emerging technologies designed to use spectrum in different ways is often diminished,” stated GAO.
GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, made several recommendations for NTIA and the FCC including:
c Jointly assess and determine the feasibility of redefining the spectrum allocation system to build in greater flexibility;
c Develop and implement plans to gain a more thorough and ongoing understanding of the current spectrum environment; and
c Strengthen efforts to develop jointly accepted models and methodologies to assess the impact of new technologies on overall spectrum use and increase opportunities to permit testing of those technologies.
GAO also urged NTIA to tighten its spectrum-management system by:
c Establishing guidance for agencies to report their future spectrum requirements;
c Strengthening NTIA’s spectrum certification process to more directly address spectrum efficiency; and
c Determining approaches for providing incentives to agencies to use spectrum more efficiently and then pilot and measure the effectiveness of those approaches.
