Microsoft, MVPDs, Unlicensed Spectrum Advocates Battle Broadcasters on ATSC 3.0

Broadcasters clashed with Microsoft, MVPDs and unlicensed spectrum advocates responding to an FCC Further NPRM on ATSC 3.0, in filings in docket 16-142 Wednesday. Broadcast entities such as NAB and One Media want transitioning broadcasters to have the option to use vacant channels, but Microsoft, the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge said that request is a spectrum grab. Such “a dramatic giveaway” to broadcasters is a legal violation “inconsistent” with the public interest and spectrum policy, and is “likely unnecessary to facilitate the voluntary ATSC 3.0 transition,” Microsoft said. The sides also disagree about the standards to be applied to broadcaster waivers of the 3.0 order’s simulcast requirement.

Vacant channels should be able to temporarily host broadcasters transitioning to the new standard, said NAB, Pearl TV and One Media. “It is critically important to reiterate that this spectrum is reserved for broadcast use; it is not unallocated spectrum available for any other use,” One Media said: “Under no circumstances” should the FCC limit broadcaster access to the vacant bands “to expand mythical unlicensed use, which has proven to be a massive flop over the last decade." Said Pearl: “It is a core tenant of the Commission’s rules that unlicensed devices are not entitled to protection against licensed operations." Since broadcasters would use the vacant channels only temporarily during switches, vacant bands wouldn’t be permanently barred for unlicensed users, Pearl said. America’s Public Television Stations, CPB and PBS said the FCC should let public TV channels that can’t find simulcast partners use the vacant bands to assist in moving to 3.0.

Letting broadcasters have “exclusive use” of the vacant bands ”would harm consumers by effectively foreclosing the public’s unlicensed access to the vacant channels for rural broadband and other innovative services,” said OTI and PK. Since the 3.0 order let broadcasters downgrade signals to standard definition and to simulcast only their primary stream, they won’t be so starved for bandwidth as to require the vacant bands, the groups said. Several broadcaster opponents raised the point that the industry initially assured the FCC that the changeover would require no spectrum. “Broadcasters gave assurances that they could undertake this project without asking for additional spectrum and without asking the government, cable operators and consumers to share the burdens or subsidize the costs,” NCTA said.

The FCC is forbidden by statute from granting exclusive use of spectrum without holding an auction, Microsoft said. The agency isn't permitted “to simply assign additional spectrum to stations whenever, in the Commission’s view, this additional spectrum would ease the transition to ATSC 3.0,” the company said. Letting stations crowd unlicensed uses out of the vacant bands will hurt innovation and investment in spectrum sharing, said the Wi-Fi Alliance. Wireless mic users would be similarly hurt, said Sennheiser and Shure. “Adequate spectrum resources are required for content creation,” Sennheiser said. Low-power TV station owner Watch TV went against full-powers in opposing such vacant band use: “For the Commission to reduce further the already small number of channels available for displaced LPTV stations would be to impose hardship on the least financially able licensees and the least served audiences.”

The simulcast requirement shouldn’t keep broadcasters from moving forward with the new standard, NAB said. Don’t “set a waiver standard so high that viewers in small or rural markets are shut out,” said NAB. The Media Bureau should be delegated authority to quickly grant simulcast requests, said Meredith. “Speed is important, as other ‘daisy chain’ elements may be waiting on a waiver.”

Public media filers asked the FCC to exempt all noncommercial educational stations from simulcast requirements, as they have before. Since must-carry rights for NCEs aren’t connected to designated market areas, those stations tend not to be as clustered with commercial stations, said APTS, CPB and PBS. “These geographic differences make simulcasting difficult, if not impossible, for many public television stations.”

Making simulcasting waivers easy to obtain would burden MVPDs and undermine the voluntary aspect of the transition, NTCA said. The FCC should consider costs to MVPDs in deciding on waiver requests, it said. The agency should provide narrow relief to broadcasters, said the American Television Alliance, which has many MVPDs as members. Instead of waiving the simulcast requirement, where possible the agency should instead waive the coverage requirement of how much of a broadcaster’s coverage area is receiving the station’s signal, ATVA said. Don’t entertain simulcast waivers until a later stage of the changeover, NCTA said. ATSC 3.0 is “an experiment” at its current stage, NTCA said. It doesn’t require “universal broadcaster participation” and there's “no reason to sacrifice the simulcasting rules’ protection against disruption and costs to consumers and cable operators just so every broadcaster under any circumstance may try it out,” the group said. The cable association said the broad public media exemption request would be disruptive to MVPDs. Wait to grant waivers until equipment and TVs for receiving 3.0 and transmitting it via cable are available, NCTA said.

One point of agreement for broadcasters and MVPDs was on significantly viewed status. NAB and NCTA agreed with the FCC tentative conclusion that the switchover shouldn’t alter a station’s significantly viewed designation.