LG sees many automotive applications on the ATSC 3.0 road map, John Taylor, senior vice president-public affairs and communications, told a CTA-NAB webinar Monday. “The automotive makers that we’re speaking to” see big opportunities for 3.0 in “backseat entertainment” and the technology’s “one-to-many architecture,” he said.
The FCC’s June 9 agenda item saying some ownership limitations doesn't precisely apply to TV broadcasters banding together to use ATSC 3.0 to lease their spectrum for wireless uses isn’t a new policy but more of a clarification, said Commissioner Brendan Carr and industry attorneys in interviews. The item includes an NPRM seeking comment on other rule changes that could help datacasting.
Commissioners will act at their June 9 meeting on CTIA and Wireless Infrastructure Association proposals for more changes to wireless infrastructure rules designed to accelerate siting of towers and other 5G facilities, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai said Monday. The move was expected, as is a fight from local and state governments (see 2005110029). Pai will also ask commissioners to approve auction procedures for Phase I of the FCC's 10-year, $20.4 billion Rural Digital Opportunity Fund and proposed an NPRM on the use of very high-band spectrum. ATSC 3.0 also is on the agenda (see 2005180066).
Comments on the FCC proposal to ease interference restrictions for TV broadcaster distributed transmission systems are due June 12, said a public notice in Friday’s Daily Digest. ATSC 3.0 advocates said the relaxed rules are important to the success of the new standard (see 2003310066). Replies are due July 13 in docket 20-74.
The FCC confirmed Monday that members' next meeting tentatively will include a vote on wireless infrastructure, as we reported last week. Other items potentially on tap for a June 9 vote are auction procedures for the $16.4 billion, 10-year high-cost USF; high-band spectrum action; and on ATSC 3.0.
COVID-19 is affecting the launch of ATSC 3.0 stations and creating uncertainty about when they will begin airing the new standard, said broadcasters and NextGenTV advocates Thursday on an NAB Show Express streamed panel. “We’re still on track to get a bunch of markets launched this year,” said John Hane, CEO of Spectrum Consortium (Spectrum Co).
The first ATSC 3.0-compliant TVs from LG, Samsung and Sony bearing the NextGenTV logo are available for purchase, though the COVID-19 pandemic has shut down much brick-and-mortar retail or confined it to curbside pickup, said executives at the NAB Show Express virtual event. “The question we’re all grappling with is, what will this new normal be?” said John Taylor, LG senior vice president-public affairs and communications.
Commercial deployment updates in 12 categories of ATSC 3.0 products and services are included in the new 3.0 “progress report” (see 2004220004) going live Monday at the ATSC website in time for the virtual NAB Show Express event Tuesday and Wednesday. More than four dozen ATSC members submitted a total of 80 entries.
ATSC asked members to contribute news about their 3.0 product and services deployments or development plans for a “progress report” to be posted on the group’s newly revamped website in time for the NAB Show Express virtual event May 13-14. Any member may contribute by May 4, and there's no charge to participate, said ATSC Tuesday. It plans to publish the progress report online by May 11.
Commissioners are expected to unanimously approve before Thursday’s meeting an order relaxing low-power FM technical restrictions and an NPRM on expanding video descriptions, FCC officials told us. The video description draft isn’t expected to undergo much change. The LPFM order's final version is expected to include changes to the section on waivers for channel 6 interference and possible changes on directional antennas.