‘Several Parties,’ Including NAB Members, Back ATSC 3.0 Mandates, Says T-Mobile

T-Mobile “has no issue with voluntary adoption of ATSC 3.0 technology," but is “concerned” about calls for an FCC mandate to “force inclusion of the technology” in smartphones, it told Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff in Tuesday meetings, said a filing Wednesday in commission docket 16-142. “Counter to the assertions of NAB” that it and its fellow 3.0 petitioners never called for tuner mandates (see 1709250053), “several parties, including NAB members, have argued for Commission action to mandate ATSC 3.0 reception in mobile devices,” said T-Mobile. Its PowerPoint presentation to FCC staff listed the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance of low-power TV interests as calling for a tuner mandate in smartphones when 3.0 broadcasts are available to 25 percent of the U.S. population and noted that NAB TV board members Sinclair and Gray have seats on the alliance board. Other 3.0 “mandate proponents” include Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia and Sinclair’s One Media subsidiary and Mark Aitken, Sinclair’s vice president-advanced technology, T-Mobile said. The carrier referenced One Media's May 9 comments in the FCC's 3.0 rulemaking in which it appeared to dip a toe in the water of backing future tuner mandates, though it actually stopped well short of asking the commission to impose them now (see 1705110053).The PowerPoint also referenced an Aitken quote from our Sept. 13 report (see 1709120020) in which he said that “our concern, be it demonstrated by T-Mobile and others, is that, in fact, the free market is not functioning the way that regulators believe it can or should.” That report also quoted Aitken as saying: “To be clear, we’ve not asked for a mandate. We believe in the free market. We hope that the free market can prevail.” The PowerPoint said T-Mobile was the "largest winner of 600 MHz band spectrum" in the incentive auction, and is "working to rapidly deploy competitive wireless services" in that band.