WASHINGTON-FCC Chairman Michael Powell plans to present for a vote at either the November or December meetings of the Federal Communications Commission a Media Bureau plan to set an end date for the digital TV transition in 2009, said Rebecca Fisher, special adviser for media relations to the FCC’s Media Bureau.
If the FCC adopts the Media Bureau plan, it would reverse a provision in a Senate Commerce Committee bill that allows some broadcasters to indefinitely keep the DTV spectrum.
The FCC’s Media Bureau Plan aims to get at the current 85-percent threshold, which says that broadcasters must give back their analog spectrum on Jan. 1, 2007, or when 85 percent of the homes in their license areas can receive digital signals. It is estimated it will be at least 2010 before most markets reach that threshold if the FCC counts only homes with either DTVs or digital set-top boxes.
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 signal carried by cable operators, instead of the current rule, which requires cable operators to carry only a broadcaster’s analog signal. The cable company then could choose whether to broadcast only in digital technology and require customers to get a digital set-top box or to download the broadcaster’s digital signal into an analog signal.
Either way, the broadcaster would be broadcasting in digital and “85 percent” of the homes in their market would be capable of receiving a digital signal, thus the broadcaster would be required to give back the analog signal as of Jan. 1, 2009.
In other words, commercial wireless carriers, which have long coveted the 700 MHz band, could purchase this spectrum at auction knowing that they would have access to it in 2009.
The FCC has postponed the auction of 700 MHz licenses because commercial wireless carriers said they do not want to bid for spectrum because they don’t know when they would gain access to it.
The DTV transition has received a lot of political clout, because solving public-safety interoperability crisis was a recommendation included in the 9/11 Commission Report. Public safety is slated to receive 24 megahertz of spectrum in the 700 MHz band with some set aside for interoperability once the transition to DTV is complete.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) last week introduced legislation to set a firm date for the end of the DTV transition. Less than 24 hours after the McCain bill was introduced, a majority of the Senate Commerce Committee went against the chairman and diluted the bill, making it possible that TV broadcasters may never be required to return spectrum in the 700 MHz band.
McCain said the committee proposal is worse than current rules.
The Save Lives Act likely will not be considered by the Senate, said McCain. Instead, McCain told reporters he will try to set a hard date to the DTV transition by amending legislation resulting from the 9/11 Commission Report. The Senate Monday began consideration of the intelligence-reform bill stemming from the 9/11 Commission Report, but as of Tuesday morning, McCain had yet to file an amendment for consideration.
