Community Broadcasters Ask FCC to Nix DTV Coupon Program
The FCC was asked to find quickly that coupon- eligible digital converter boxes that don’t pass analog signals to TV sets violate the All-Channel Receiver Act and sections 15.115(c) and 15.117(b) of commission rules. The rules and the Act require such boxes to get all frequencies allocated by the commission to TV broadcasters, the Community Broadcasters Association said in a petition for declaratory ruling filed Thursday. Some CE makers are producing boxes that won’t pass along analog signals, or plan to do so, making it “critical” that the FCC act “promptly,” said the CBA, which represents class A and low-power TV stations, most of which won’t stop analog broadcasting in February 2009.
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The FCC has set no timetable for LPTV stations to go all-digital. Translator stations also are excluded from the 2009 analog cutoff, which the CBA said affects only 1/5 of U.S. TV broadcasters. Some devices will pass along analog signals and others “will convert digital signals and will ignore analog signals,” the CBA said, based on information from prospective converter-box makers. “Thus they will act as a complete barrier to viewing analog TV signals from Class A, LPTV and TV translator stations unless the receiver has two separate antenna terminals to which two separate antennas are attached.”
Boxes by Samsung, EchoStar, Magnavox, Philco and many other brands, have an analog pass-through feature, said a CEA spokesman. Viewers of low-power and translator stations “can choose from among several coupon-eligible converter boxes that allow them to receive both digital and analog television signals,” he said. “Availability of these boxes demonstrates that the marketplace is working and CBA’s 11th-hour request for a new regulatory regime is not necessary. Starting in 2008, all consumers wanting to receive both an analog and digital broadcast signal on their analog television will have the option to do so by purchasing a coupon-eligible converter box.” The CEA hopes that long-time cooperation by government and business toward a successful DTV transition isn’t stopped or reversed by regulations, he said.
The Philco TB150HH9 box that the NTIA has certified as coupon-eligible has analog pass-through, an agency spokesman confirmed. The certified Magnavox model doesn’t, he said, though CEA said it does. The NTIA and the FCC lab are testing “numerous” other models, so more boxes with analog passthrough may be certified, he said. “Information about these models is proprietary,” he said. In drafting its final rule, the NTIA urged manufacturers “to take into consideration the needs of consumers” to receive analog and digital “and to investigate minimal signal loss solutions that would ensure an acceptable analog signal passthrough.” But the NTIA hesitates to require analog pass-through in coupon-eligible boxes “because it will result in a reduction in received signal level and in increased cost to all consumers” who buy a box, it said.
CBA President Ron Bruno testified Oct. 31 at a House Telecom Subcommittee hearing that Congress should level the playing field between full-power TV stations and LPTV stations on cable carriage rights (CD Nov 1 p12). But Bruno never said that coupon-eligible converter boxes -- a major topic at the hearing -- should be outlawed for lacking analog pass-through. Under a CBA proposal that’s “simple and fair,” class A stations immediately would cease analog broadcasts and convert to single-channel, digital-only operations, Bruno said. This would speed the transition, freeing valuable analog spectrum, he said. In return, the stations would get carriage rights within their Grade B contours on the local digital cable system’s basic tier, he said.