A petition on relaxing interference rules to make it easier for ATSC 3.0 broadcasters to use single frequency networks (see 1910040038) has LPTV Spectrum Rights Coalition President Mike Gravino “very concerned." In an emailed newsletter Monday, Gravino called for a “crowd sourced impact analysis” to gauge the effect of the petition on low-power TV, Class A and TV translator stations. He's seeking information on whether LPTV will be able to benefit from the proposal, whether any efforts have been made to study the effects on LPTV, and what will happen to LPTV stations “displaced” by the signals from distributed transmission systems outside their full-power station’s contour. “During the next two years LPTV will still be moving around, and many with government funding to move,” Gravino emailed us. “While I am very concerned about this Petition, I am open to seeing to how it could benefit us, also.”

The FCC should seek comment on relaxing restrictions on distributed transmission systems (DTS) to let stations transitioning to ATSC 3.0 better use single frequency networks, said a petition for rulemaking from NAB and America’s Public Television Stations posted in docket 16-142 Friday. Changing the rules to allow broadcasters to set up SFNs on the edges of their station contours would improve coverage throughout station coverage areas, increase spectrum efficiency, and reduce the need for TV translators, they said. NAB and APTS want the FCC to seek comment on redefining station coverage areas to allow DTS transmitter signals to reach outside the service area of a station’s central transmitter, so they can better fill in gaps in the edges of an outlet’s coverage. The rule change won’t result in more interference for low-power TV stations, the groups said. “Stations could enhance service to viewers by improving coverage throughout their service areas and offering improved mobile coverage without the risk of encroaching on the service of stations in adjacent markets.” Fletcher Heald broadcast attorney Peter Tannenwald said more flexibility for DTS is probably a good thing for the public, but that it’s not clear what the proposal could mean for LPTV. Low-power s could lose some viewers outside their protected contour to interference from DTS transmitters, he said. “If the FCC encourages DTS to replace translators, new channels could open up that would benefit LPTV stations.”

CTA applied to register the NEXTGEN TV logo as a certification mark Sept. 25, the day before introducing it publicly as the linchpin of the industry’s go-to-market strategy for ATSC 3.0 TVs (see 1909260021), said newly posted records at the Patent and Trademark Office. The logo “is intended to certify that the goods to which the mark will be applied have been evaluated to meet certain use and performance standards, namely that the goods are ATSC 3.0 standard compliant,” said the application that Wiley Rein filed on CTA’s behalf. The association will “later provide” a copy of the “standards governing the use of the certification mark on or in connection with the goods/services in the application,” it said. Details remain murky on the performance metrics that would minimally qualify a TV to bear the logo.

ATSC 3.0 offers “super-advanced emergency alerting” beyond what's available on most platforms, FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly told the Pennsylvania chapter of the National Emergency Number Association Thursday. “No one is quite sure how ATSC 3.0 will develop, if at all, or whether it will be a smashing success,” he said: “While a number of the larger broadcast station groups have embraced the technology and see the benefits that it can bring, the technology remains in the testing phase.”

ATSC 3.0 will be the focus of an FCBA Mass Media Committee brown bag lunch 12:15 p.m. Tuesday at Pillsbury Winthrop.

"Encouraging" ATSC 3.0's "global recognition" will be the task of a new ATSC Planning Team 6, said the organization. PT6's “scope of work” will include “strategic communications” with international standards development organizations, plus “new work item proposals for technical enhancements to the ATSC 3.0 standard that support global use cases,” it said. ATSC named Alan Stein, InterDigital, as PT6 chair, and Louis Libin, Sinclair, as vice chair. PT6 reports to the ATSC board. The U.S. asks ITU to adopt 3.0 as a digital broadcast TV standard internationally (see 1904070001).

The Advanced Warning and Response Network Alliance met with Commissioner Mike O’Rielly and an aide to Commissioner Geoffrey Starks Monday, said filings posted in FCC docket 16-142 Friday. The meetings were progress reports on advanced emergency alerts, emergency alerting user interfaces with ATSC 3.0, and the potential for localized alerts transmitted with streaming media.

America’s Public Television Stations noted Motorola Solutions and Sonim demonstrated Monday at the annual conference of Association of Public Safety Communications Officers in Baltimore, receiving ATSC 3.0 signals with smartphones and tablets. “The next step is getting these Next Gen chips into the mobile devices themselves, and the sooner that happens, the safer and better informed the American people will be,” said APTS CEO Patrick Butler in a news release. NAB CEO Gordon Smith and broadcasters have worried whether phone manufactures would include 3.0 chips (see 1905300063). The demo used chips built by Saankhya Labs.

Concerns about the ATSC 3.0 transition’s effect on MVPDs raised by Charter are “misplaced and premature,” said Sinclair's One Media in a letter to the FCC posted Friday in docket 16-142. MVPDs won’t need equipment to decode 3.0 signals “at this time and for the foreseeable future” because broadcasters are simulcasting 3.0 channels in the current standard, One Media said. Broadcasters have “a strong interest” in MVPD carriage of 3.0 and are negotiating carriage terms through retransmission consent agreements, One Media said. One Media also objected to Charter concerns that 3.0 doesn’t have consumer devices and that it duplicates features available through the internet. Those deployment considerations “have zero impact on MVPD access to broadcaster-provided programming” and reflect “a particularly jaundiced view of the Commission’s regulatory role,” One Media said.

The broadcast industry’s “commitment,” announced at the NAB Show, to roll out ATSC 3.0 services in markets covering 72 percent of the U.S. population by the end of 2020 (see 1904080071) “sort of solves the chicken and the egg problem with 3.0,” said Sinclair CEO Chris Ripley on a Q2 earnings call Wednesday. “You need to get the transmission side up for receivers to begin penetrating the marketplace,” he said. Sinclair’s One Media 3.0 partner Saankhya Labs, which is developing 3.0 reception chips for mobile devices (see 1703280044), “made its first sale of those chips,” said Ripley. He didn’t identify the customer and Sinclair didn’t respond to queries. “There’s a number of people interested in them to start testing and developing new products around that. That was another major milestone, as OEMs and manufacturers start thinking about how to integrate this in a variety of different products.” The U.S. decision asking the ITU to adopt 3.0 as an international broadcast TV standard, also announced at NAB (see 1904070001), was “a major step” toward commercializing the technology in other countries, said Ripley. “We think some that are targets for us to focus on are India and Brazil,” he said. Both would “benefit immensely from the 3.0 standard,” he said. “In India, you’ve got hundreds of millions of people with low to no connectivity.” He thinks 3.0 would be “an incredible use case for that country,” he said.