Monty Tayloe

Pay-TV companies and groups still disagree with TiVo and the Consumer Video Choice Coalition over whether the FCC should take action based on the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee report and whether such an action would be legal, said replies in docket 15-64. AT&T, the American Cable Association, MPAA and NCTA believe the FCC would be overstepping congressional intent and its own authority if it tried to implement the downloadable security solution backed by the CVCC.

The proposal for a downloadable security solution advocated by the Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVCC), isn't a sound basis for a rulemaking, a group of pay-TV companies, set-top box manufacturers and associations said in a meeting Tuesday. They met with Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, FCC Chief Technology Officer Scott Jordan and Media Bureau staff, said an ex parte filing in docket 15-64. The industry delegation included the American Cable Association, Arris, AT&T, CableLabs, Comcast, MPAA and NCTA, and was composed mainly of entities that had supported the multichannel video programming distributor-backed proposals in the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee final report.

TV broadcasters considering selling all their spectrum in the incentive auction and leaving the industry need to consider the liability and contract ramifications of taking that step, said Pillsbury Winthrop broadcast attorney Scott Flick during a Broadcasting & Cable webinar on the incentive auction Thursday. The webinar also included University of Maryland auction economist Peter Cramton, Incentive Auction Task Force Vice Chair Howard Symons, and KLCS Los Angeles Director-TV Engineering Alan Popkin. Broadcasters need to consider that untangling contractual obligations could eat up a portion of the money they get for selling their spectrum, Flick said. “It’s not the size of the bid, it’s how you use it,” said one of the slides in Flick’s presentation.

NCTA and members of the Consumer Video Choice Coalition are sparring in ex parte filings and interviews over whether the CVCC is now recommending downloadable security different from the one it recommended in the Downloadable Security Technology Advisory Committee report. NCTA asked the FCC for an extension of the Nov. 9 deadline for reply comments (see 1510280070) to adjust its filings to what it says is a changing position by the CVCC, first in initial comments from the group's members and then in a recent ex parte filed by members Public Knowledge and Hauppauge.

Three incentive auction items that had been on the agenda for Thursday’s FCC meeting were approved and won’t be part of Thursday’s session, agency officials said in interviews. An item involving proposed rules for broadcaster channel sharing was released Wednesday after being approved by the full commission. Rules on interference after the auction between wireless carriers in the 600 MHz band and broadcasters, and an item defining when broadcasters and unlicensed users need to vacate their spectrum to make way for the new wireless owners, have also been approved, they said.

Broadcasters unanimously opposed the FCC proposal to preserve more channels for unlicensed and wireless mic use, in comments on a vacant channel rulemaking. Prioritizing unlicensed use over licensed TV broadcasters upends FCC policy, said Mako, Sinclair and numerous other broadcasters in docket 15-146. The commission can't make such a “radical shift” without first establishing a record to inform it, Sinclair said. There is “no logical way” for the FCC to “legally determine that unlicensed services, which have never" before "been accorded priority” over licensed services, “should now be found to have priority,” Mako said. Without a record, the proposed policy shift is “arbitrary and capricious,” Sinclair said. The vacant band rule would interfere with broadcasters taking full advantage of the new ATSC 3.0 standard, said Bonten Media and Pearl TV. “ATSC 3.0 is a near-term reality, and the Commission’s decision in this docket should preserve its significant benefits for the American public,” Pearl said. Implementing some of the channel sharing facilitated by the new standard will require stations to alter their contours, which could become “impractical or impossible” if TV stations have to worry about protecting unlicensed channels, Pearl said. The vacant channel rule would “improperly constrain television stations’ options for new or expanded television services” and reduce the chances to make broadcasting more diverse, said the Association of Public Television Stations, Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS jointly. If the FCC does enact the rule, it should come with exemptions for noncommercial educational full-power stations and translators, they filing said. The agency can't make the vacant channel proposal into a rule because it conflicts with congressional directives to preserve low-power TV spectrum, said the LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition. The FCC must instead go back to Congress for guidance, the coalition said. The commission must provide “a legitimate opportunity” for displaced LPTV and translators to get new channels after the auction, Gray Television said. The FCC should also allow qualified LPTV stations after the auction to transition to Class A status, Gray said. The vacant channel policy is unlikely to be useful, Sinclair said. “The likelihood that the white spaces will have practical (as opposed to theoretical) value for unlicensed service is very small,” said Sinclair. “Unlicensed uses have been permitted in the white spaces of the broadcast bands for years, but the only evidence of usage suggests a few isolated experiments (and failed experiments at that).”

NAB petitioned the FCC to reconsider its incentive auction procedures public notice on the issues of market variability, repacking broadcasters in the duplex gap, and reserving space for wireless mics. The challenges, posted Friday in docket 12-268, won't “require the FCC to delay the auction or upend fundamental aspects of its auction design,” the association said in a news release. “Both issues can be addressed through software settings and do not require reevaluation of the Commission’s auction design.” Speaking on an episode of C-Span's The Communicators filmed before NAB's petition was posted online, Incentive Auction Task Force Chairman Gary Epstein said the auction is on track to start March 29 as planned.

The Media Bureau sought comment on proposals in the Downloadable Security Technological Advisory Committee final report (see 1508280035) even as stakeholders continued debating the merits of FCC action on what DSTAC proposed. The bureau, in a public notice Tuesday, asked “how it should inform the Commission’s obligations” to promote competitive availability for navigation devices. The Public Knowledge and TiVo-backed Consumer Video Choice Coalition (CVC) and DSTAC member Hauppauge released statements Tuesday asking the FCC to implement recommendations from the report.

With STELAR requiring the FCC Downloadable Security Technical Advisory Committee to produce a report on a downloadable security successor to CableCARD a week after its final meeting this Friday, committee members and industry officials are divided on whether the DSTAC efforts should lead to any further action, they said in interviews this week. The Satellite Television Extension and Localization Act Reauthorization-mandated report will offer two proposals, one backed by the committee's pay-TV interests and one backed by Public Knowledge and TiVo (see 1508040062). Officials on the pay-TV side said they hope the FCC takes no further action after receiving the report. The other side wants further commission action.

Wireless mics will be able to use new bands and share spectrum in the TV band, said a Wednesday FCC order issued with the support of four members and a partial dissent by Commissioner Mike O'Rielly. The order, which was deleted from Thursday's meeting agenda, allows all licensed users in the TV band to use the reserved 4 MHz in the duplex gap and allows wireless mics to operate in TV bands even within the contours of TV stations as long as the TV signals are at a low enough threshold, an FCC release said. The order also allows wireless mics to operate in portions of the 900 MHz band, the 6875-7125 MHz band and the 1435-1525 MHz band at specified times and places, coordinated with aeronautical mobile telemetry, the release said.