WASHINGTON-The Federal Communications Commission Wednesday adopted rules designed to hasten the transition to digital TV, but did not say how it plans to handle broadcast extension requests after Dec. 31, 2006.
“The national dialogue has shifted from wondering if the DTV transition would ever end to exploring when it should end. The importance of the end of the DTV transition for our country cannot be overstated. Completion of the transition will recoup a significant amount of spectrum for first responder, public-safety use and for innovative wireless broadband services-enhancing our homeland and economic security in the process,” said FCC Chairman Michael Powell.
By not answering the end-date question, the wireless industry and public safety still do not know when the spectrum will be available for their use. Congress dictated that 24 megahertz of the returned spectrum be allocated to public safety with a portion going to interoperability. The rest was to be auctioned. The FCC has auctioned some spectrum but the mobile-phone industry has resisted any further auctioning until a hard date to end the transition is set.
Dec. 31, 2006, is the date set by Congress for the DTV transition to be complete, but Congress gave the broadcasters a huge loophole. Broadcasters are not required to return the 6 megahertz of spectrum they were given to facilitate the transition until 85 percent of the homes in their viewing areas are capable of receiving a digital signal, but technically they must ask for an extension. The FCC’s Media Bureau has been floating an idea that would set Jan. 1, 2009, as the end of the transition.
The Media Bureau proposal gets at the heart of the relationship between broadcasters and cable operators. It would allow broadcasters in October 2008 to elect to have their entire digital signals carried by cable operators instead of the current rule, which requires cable operators to carry only broadcasters’ analog signals. Cable companies then would choose whether to broadcast only in digital and require customers to obtain either through purchase or giveaway digital set-top boxes or to download a broadcaster’s digital signal into an analog signal.
Either way, a broadcaster would be broadcasting in digital and “85 percent” of the homes in its market would be capable of receiving digital signals, and the broadcaster would be required to give back its spectrum used to transmit its analog signal as of Jan. 1, 2009.
Among the actions the FCC took to speed the transition include outlining engineering interference protection for broadcasters and wireless to ensure that both can operate during the transition on channels 52-69 without interference.
The FCC also allowed 13 devices to bypass the broadcast flag protections that digital content carry, allowing for DTV viewers to enjoy digital content in the same way they use analog content-by making personal copies or delaying viewing until a later time.
