FCC Should Reject Mandatory Channel Sharing for LPTV, NAB Says

The FCC should reject a proposal that low-power TV stations be subject to mandatory channel sharing, said the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance (ATBA), NAB and others in reply comments filed in docket 03-185 in response to the FCC’s request for comment on proposals on the incentive auction’s effect on LPTV. “Coercing LPTV and translator stations into involuntary channel sharing arrangements to provide more white space channels” would be equivalent to “strip-mining” licensed stations for unlicensed uses, NAB said. Commenters also clashed over whether some LPTV stations should be allowed to use part of the FM band and whether the analog tuner requirement should be relaxed as the last stations transition to digital.

Mandatory channel sharing was suggested in the comments phase of the proceeding in a joint filing from Public Knowledge and the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute (see 1501130061), with the goal of freeing up more spectrum for unlicensed uses. Such a policy would be tantamount to reprioritizing LPTV beneath the white space uses, ATBA and NAB said. “In the context of the highly constrained, tightly repacked post-auction television band, the suggestion is simply a euphemism for asking the FCC to repurpose spectrum from licensed LPTV stations for unlicensed use,” ATBA said. Such a priority shift would be against the spectrum act, both groups said. “Purposefully diminishing LPTV and translator service would be contrary to the FCC’s core public interest requirements under the Communications Act,” ATBA said. Such a policy would be a “radical departure,” NAB said.

Any change in channel sharing rules for LPTV should not come with increased carriage rights, NCTA said. The FCC should "reject calls to establish and elevate protection rights of LPTV and TV translator stations to the detriment of the incentive auction’s success," said CTIA.

The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association didn’t request mandatory channel sharing, but suggested unlicensed uses should be permitted on the channels allotted to LPTV licenses that have yet to build facilities, at least until the licensees start operating. “Database protection should be afforded only to those stations that are providing service to the public so that WISPs, local communities and others may use the vacant spectrum for fixed broadband services,” WISPA said. Such a clause should be a condition for extending the LPTV construction deadline, WISPA said. The LPTV licenses that have yet to build their digital facilities “are essentially arbitraging an initial construction permit with a three-year construction period that has already expired into a permit [for a station] that may not have to be built until 2020,” WISPA said.

LPTV stations broadcasting analog FM signals “is a patently inefficient use of radiofrequency Spectrum,” said NPR, flying in the face of Venture Tech’s claim that “commenters overwhelmingly support the Commission’s proposal to allow LPTV stations on digital TV Channel 6 to operate analog FM radio services.” The proposal is “not germane to the DTV proceeding, is premature, and is contrary to communications law and policy,” NPR said.

With the incentive auction likely leading to the last straggler stations converting to digital, there’s no longer a need for the analog tuner requirement, CEA said. Analog tuners are “no longer necessary to ensure that consumers can access all broadcast television (“TV”) channels and thus provides little or no value to consumers,” CEA said. “By declining to immediately remove this unnecessary requirement, the Commission may unintentionally send the wrong message to LPTV and TV translator licensees that there is no need to rush their transition to digital,” CEA said. Broadcast engineering firm Cohen Dippell disagreed. “Along each border, both Canada and Mexico have receivable analog signals that cross into the United States,” the firm said. “Therefore, it is premature to discontinue the analog tuners in the manufacture of new television sets.”