NAB, MSTV Launch Offensive in Battle Over White Spaces
The NAB, Association for Maximum Service TV and other groups opposing the use of personal-portable devices to access the Internet using broadcast “white spaces” said Monday their side is beating high tech in their all-out fight. NAB and the other groups showed ads they're running in publications and commercials to be shown on TV in the Washington area. Groups also will be hitting the FCC and Capitol Hill for meetings to make their case with policymakers.
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Asked whether the huge commitment of resources was a sign that broadcasters are losing the battle over use of the white spaces, NAB President David Rehr said the opposite is true. “The line has been cracked on our adversaries,” Rehr said, alluding to FCC test results favorable to broadcasters’ position. “The line has been broken. Successful battles are always won after you crack the line… You pour in all of your troops and resources.”
Rehr told us that some of the commissioner offices are likely still making a decision on whether to allow use of the portable devices in the white spaces. “I think they want to base it on good science,” he said. “That’s where we want to remind them that what they have right now isn’t good.”
NAB and MSTV will stress their support for using wireless spectrum to further rural broadband deployment through fixed systems, officials said Monday. Meanwhile, they'll push hard against plans to use the TV band for mobile broadband services -- particularly involving devices that rely on spectrum sensing to determine when they'll work. The goal is to convince regulators and lawmakers that they shouldn’t risk the DTV transition on unproven technology that broadcasters believe will cause devastating interference to DTV sets and wireless microphones used at live sports events.
TV ads featuring a frustrated viewer experiencing the effects of DTV interference during a Redskins football game will run on every commercial TV station in the Washington area, including Spanish-language stations. The group is also taking out ads in print publications read by Hill staffers, including Communications Daily. There is another set of spots that may air later during the policy battle, Rehr said.
Rehr and MSTV President David Donovan kicked off the lobbying Monday with a joint letter sent to FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. Representatives from each state’s broadcast association will fly in to Washington Sept. 19 to lobby their members of Congress, Rehr said.
NAB, MSTV and a coalition of broadcasters have started visiting the eighth floor and key Hill offices to make these arguments Monday and Tuesday. The group includes representatives from Disney, NBC Universal, Post-Newsweek Stations, the major professional sports leagues, the Community Broadcasters Association and others, said an NAB spokesman. “This unified front represents the seriousness of the issue.”
Broadcasters will rebut arguments that they're slow to adopt new technology and are standing in the way of broadband progress, said Rehr. “Broadcasters have aggressively embraced new technology,” he said, pointing to HDTV and the industry’s work on mobile DTV broadcasting. “But there is a difference between being prudently pro-technology and supporting devices that do not work.”
Even if the technology sensing devices hadn’t failed tests by the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology, they would still fail in a real-world environment, Donovan said. That’s because their sensing threshold is too high to detect weak broadcast signals, he said. Moreover, because of the all-or-nothing nature of DTV reception, white spaces devices might miss a DTV signal when a TV set just 10 feet away can pick it up without a problem. Then the device would start operating on the same channel that the nearby TV is tuned to, causing crippling interference, he said.
The New America Foundation, an advocate of using the white spaces for wireless broadband, fired back. “NAB scare tactics cannot change the engineering facts,” the group said. “There is no longer any doubt about the technical feasibility of mobile, low-power devices to detect-and-avoid channels occupied by licensed TV stations or wireless microphone systems.”