Vacant Channel Push at FCC Could Threaten ATSC 3.0, Say Broadcasters

A proposal to reserve vacant channels in the TV band for unlicensed use would make it hard for broadcasting to transition to ATSC 3.0, broadcasters and broadcast attorneys told us. Many of the new capabilities expected out of the new TV standard would require broadcasters to upgrade their facilities to use single frequency networks, a change that would become extremely difficult if vacant channels are reserved for unlicensed use, they said.

“This would put fundamental constraints on broadcasters in order to protect theoretical uses of the white spaces,” said Pillsbury Winthrop communications attorney John Hane, responding to a recent push for the proposal by Microsoft (see 1707110015). Preserving the vacant channel also would severely limit the available room for displaced low-power TV stations to find new homes, and uncertainty about the FCC’s plans has paralyzed LPTV licensees, said Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance (ATBA) Executive Director Louis Libin. “We don’t know what move to make,” he said.

The vacant channel proposal would require broadcasters making facility changes to show that a vacant channel for unlicensed use would remain available after the change, Hane said. To make ATSC 3.0 work the way broadcasters envision, multiple broadcasters in each market will need to upgrade to single frequency networks and share towers, such that three to four broadcasters could be simultaneously applying to cover new areas, Hane said. It would be very difficult for all stations to preserve a vacant channel under such circumstances, he said. “The timing is horrible,” he said. The FCC, Microsoft and New America's Open Technology Institute didn’t comment.

ATSC 3.0 goes hand in hand with broadcasters moving to single frequency networks, Sinclair Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken said. Since the networks involve multiple transmissions instead of the point-to-point framework used by ATSC 1.0, they allow the more comprehensive coverage needed to transmit information to mobile devices, a “key” aspect of the new standard, he said. “We need to lower the hurdle for people to get our content over the air,” Aitken said. If broadcasters everywhere have to preserve a vacant channel for unlicensed use, the “gyrations” required to make 3.0 would be a barrier to broadcasting’s progress, he said.

Broadcast industry officials told us they don’t have a sense of where the FCC is on the issue. The vacant channel issue had until recently been shelved, Aitken said. It’s “not a surprise” that the proposal has been resurrected, he said. “This is the same argument we’ve heard ad nauseam from the usual suspects,” he said. Previous attempts to make use of the TV white spaces always have fallen short, Aitken and Hane said, echoing an argument advanced by NAB (see 1707100042).

Though much of the attention on ATSC 3.0 has focused on the potential for new uses of broadcast spectrum by larger actors like Nexstar and Sinclair, Libin said the vacant channel proposal also would remove the “flexibility” that the new standard would offer to LPTV stations. Referring to the spectrum in question as “vacant” is itself an attack on broadcasting, Libin said. “This is TV spectrum,” Libin said. “It’s reserved for broadcasters.” The ATSC 3.0 issue is in addition to LPTV broadcasters' other concern about the vacant channel plan: It further limits the opportunities for displaced LPTV stations to find new homes. Microsoft and advocates for the vacant channel proposal are “trying to change the nomenclature,” he said.

Though ATBA and LPTV interests also have clashed with full-power broadcasters over how the vacant channels will be used in the ATSC 3.0 transition, at least the uses of the spectrum under that discussion are broadcast ones, Libin said. “They’re broadcasters, so we can have a dialogue about it,” he said. The FCC hasn’t pursued a dialogue with LPTV about the vacant channel proposal, Libin said. The commission has either not studied the effect of the proposal or not released that information, he said. “We’re willing to talk,” Libin said.