WASHINGTON-A campaign that officially kicks off this week to fight the planned giveaway of digital TV channels to broadcasters is partially funded by the cellular telephone industry, which fears any such giveaway will mean increased fees for cellular operators.
Specifically, the cellular industry is worried that unless broadcasters buy public airwaves, Congress will impose spectrum fees across the board on telecommunications firms in order to raise the $14 billion called for in its budget resolution. In addition to fees, the wireless telecommunications industry could face added competition if Congress and the Federal Communications Commission give broadcasters the flexibility to use new spectrum to offer paging, cellular and other services.
Under a 1992 FCC plan, after a 15-year transition period broadcasters must give up their six megahertz analog TV channels in exchange for an advanced television channel of the same bandwidth.
More recently, the agency said it might shorten the time broadcasters have to return their analog frequencies. There is suspicion, though, that once broadcasters get more spectrum (and flexibility to use channels as they wish) they will not give it back.
The second TV channel was deemed necessary at first because policymakers in the 1980s expected High Definition Television, a refined video technology requiring six megahertz, to succeed the current TV standard.
But advances in digital technology make it possible to transmit multiple television signals and other wireless services over a single, six megahertz TV channel. Telecommunications reform legislation that the GOP-led Congress expects to pass this year would assess a market-based fee on non-video subscriber-based services offered by broadcasters.
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, for his part, hasn’t been shy about keeping the broadcast auction issue alive in view of his promotion of competitive bidding and his desire that TV executives (with auctions hanging overhead) voluntarily embrace public interest obligations.
Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., has expressed interest in broadcast spectrum valuation, but House and Senate members generally have not gone out of their way to press the auction issue with TV station licensees, which business in every congressional district.
A 1993 law exempts the U.S. government from selling broadcast spectrum, but legislation moving through Congress would expand auction authority.
The cellular strategy, apparently designed to quietly further its agenda through a coalition of special interest groups rather than directly confront the powerful broadcast lobby, got mixed results.
The message-that broadcasters, like others, should pay for spectrum valued at between $11 billion and $70 billion to implement next-generation digital video technology-got muddled initially and at least one group that agrees with that position considered but declined to join the Campaign for Broadcast Competition when it found out about the CTIA donation.
“It seems very shady to me,” said Lynn McReynolds, a spokeswoman for the National Association of Broadcasters, referring to the cellular investment. Supporters of broadcast auctions reply NAB is trying to draw attention away from the issue, and point out the $5,000 to $10,000 pledged by the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association is minuscule compared to money spent by broadcasters to avoid paying for new spectrum.
Broadcasters argue the $14 billion Congress and the Clinton administration want to extract from spectrum over the next seven years can be raised from selling federal government spectrum.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration, a unit of the Commerce Department that advises the president on telecommunications policy and manages federal government spectrum, counters that government agencies control exclusively only 1.42 percent of the spectrum and shares 93.1 percent with private sector users.
In spite of the public relations gaffe, which may have inadvertently energized the issue, the message appears to be resonating as Congress prepares to reconcile House and Senate telecommunications reform bills and craft budget legislation to reduce the budget deficit by 2000.
“Yes, I think the broadcasters should pay for their spectrum,” said Thomas Wheeler, president of CTIA. CTIA’s members did not pay for cellular spectrum, but some of them contributed to the $7 billion generated by the auction of 99 licenses for next-generation wireless telephony known as personal communications services, or PCS.
Wheeler is working the issue through National Strategies Inc., a Washington, D.C., firm retained by CTIA. Richard Stamberger, a principal at National Strategies and a former colleague of Wheeler’s when Wheeler headed the National Cable Television Association during the 1980s, is in turn coordinating fund-raising and lobbying for the Campaign for Broadcast Competition.
CBC, which includes the Small Business Survival Committee, the Council of 100, Americans for Tax Reform and CTIA, as a silent partner, this week officially launches its drive to persuade policymakers to auction broadcast spectrum.
“Do the promoters of shows under attack by this Congress for their violent sexual content deserve this multibillion dollar gift?” asked Karen Kerrigan, president of SBSC.
Criticism of the broadcast spectrum policy is not limited to the cellular industry.
“It is absolutely ludicrous in the present political environment for broadcasters to suggest that they be granted free and exclusive radio spectrum that gives them the opportunity to provide commercial radio service in competition with entities that have paid literally billions of dollars for their spectrum,” said Jay Kitchen, president of Personal Communications Industry Association. National Strategies said it planned to solicit support from PCIA.
The UHF spectrum the FCC reserved for advanced television in the mid-1980s originally was supposed to be shared with private mobile radio services.
