@ NAB: FCC Commissioner understands broadcasters' frustration

LAS VEGAS – Details are needed on how the Federal Communications Commission plans to conduct a voluntary incentive spectrum auction to assure broadcasters they will be treated fairly, said FCC Commissioner Meredith Attwell Baker.
Baker, speaking during a panel at the National Association of Broadcasters’ annual event in Las Vegas, said in hindsight, she wished the commission had moved forward with the satellite spectrum initiative first so broadcasters could see the proof of concept. “I understand your frustration,” she told the group.
“We want to be cooperative, but we want to stay in business,” commented panel moderator and NAB CEO and President Gordon Smith.
In a wide-ranging discussion, Baker said she was encouraged to see that 41 cellphones on the market today carry FM radio chips, but that she does not believe in a federal mandate that would force wireless device manufacturers to include the chip in every handset, a proposal from NAB. Smith, a fellow Republican, said he would like to avoid a mandate as well.
Regarding trends in cord-cutting – which in the broadcast world means people dropping their cable TV subscriptions – Baker said the industry will need to figure out intellectual rights as content appears on the Internet. While Baker said cord cutters are often “techy” people who watch TV via broadcast channels and on the Internet, Smith said of the 43 million people who get watch TV solely over broadcast channels, many are often rural and elderly. The NAB wants government to know that broadcast television is important to the “social safety net” for millions of Americans who get their news and local connectivity over free over-the-air broadcast signals. Broadcasters already gave up spectrum in the white-spaces initiative, which seeks to put unlicensed spectrum available for super Wi-Fi broadband access.
Smith questioned why there “is this great rush” to get voluntary spectrum auctions done before Sept. 11, noting that when government goes fast, mistakes can get made. Broadcasters, federal users and white-space companies may be relocated to new frequencies as part of the push to get more spectrum available for mobile broadband access.
After an audience question on the proposed merger between AT&T Mobility and T-Mobile USA Inc., Smith said that while NAB has no position on the merger, in his former role as a U.S. senator, he would question the White House’s claims that voluntary spectrum auctions are going to raise $30 billion when one of the biggest bidders just left the table. As a standalone entity, T-Mobile is under pressure to get more spectrum to be able to deploy LTE services.
Ending the session on a funny note, Smith quipped that if broadband companies are going to get broadcaster’s spectrum, the decency standards that broadcasters have to follow should go with the spectrum. “It would collapse their business model!”