The “engineering trade-offs” of building ATSC 3.0 reception into smartphones would make a tuner mandate “inappropriate" for those devices, and the FCC should “refrain from considering such a requirement sought by the broadcasters,” said Skyworks Solutions, a supplier of front-end modules and other components for smartphones, in a filing posted Friday in commission docket 16-142.
The FCC needs to be sure broadcasters’ ATSC 3.0 deployment won't "disrupt consumers or impose costs and burdens on cable operators,” NCTA told commission staff in Thursday meetings, said an ex parte filing posted Friday in docket 16-142. NCTA wants the FCC to require broadcasters “to continue to transmit a robust ATSC 1.0 signal" during the transition. “Rather than end certain key transition requirements after an arbitrary three-year period,” as NAB's Sept. 8 filing proposed, the commission “must continue to require simulcasting until it determines that conditions warrant allowing a broadcaster to no longer provide an ATSC 1.0 signal,” it said. During the move, NCTA thinks the 1.0 “simulcast stream must continue to serve the same coverage area and community of license from a ‘host’ station as it did prior to the launch of the ATSC 3.0 signal on its regularly assigned channel,” it said. “The ATSC 1.0 simulcast signal should be required to transmit the same format as before the transmission of the companion ATSC 3.0 signal, with the same programming except where technically infeasible due to the nature of ATSC 3.0.” If 3.0 signal transmissions are to be “completely voluntary,” as broadcasters have proposed, “there is no basis for allowing broadcasters to use access to an ATSC 1.0 signal to secure new carriage rights for ATSC 3.0 signals in a manner that imposes costs and hardships on MVPDs and their customers,” said the cable group. NAB didn’t comment.
Broadcasters relocating ATSC 1.0 signals during the move to ATSC 3.0 should be required to give MVPDs 90 days' notice, AT&T said Friday in FCC docket 16-142. Stations should have to provide an additional 30 days' notice if the shift happens during the repacking, AT&T said. “Relocation of broadcast stations’ ATSC 1.0 signals will result in significant and costly burdens for nationwide satellite distributors such as AT&T.” A broadcaster relocating its signal requires engineers to make physical changes to AT&T’s equipment, which is often in remote locations, it said. Difficulty is exacerbated during the incentive auction repack “given the potential need to coordinate among repacking stations, channel sharing stations, and ATSC 3.0 transition stations simultaneously and across the nation,” AT&T said. Broadcasters haven’t shown why the notice requirements requested by MVPDs are a burden, it said.
T-Mobile “has no issue with voluntary adoption of ATSC 3.0 technology," but is “concerned” about calls for an FCC mandate to “force inclusion of the technology” in smartphones, it told Media Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff in Tuesday meetings, said a filing Wednesday in commission docket 16-142. “Counter to the assertions of NAB” that it and its fellow 3.0 petitioners never called for tuner mandates (see 1709250053), “several parties, including NAB members, have argued for Commission action to mandate ATSC 3.0 reception in mobile devices,” said T-Mobile. Its PowerPoint presentation to FCC staff listed the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance of low-power TV interests as calling for a tuner mandate in smartphones when 3.0 broadcasts are available to 25 percent of the U.S. population and noted that NAB TV board members Sinclair and Gray have seats on the alliance board. Other 3.0 “mandate proponents” include Free Access & Broadcast Telemedia and Sinclair’s One Media subsidiary and Mark Aitken, Sinclair’s vice president-advanced technology, T-Mobile said. The carrier referenced One Media's May 9 comments in the FCC's 3.0 rulemaking in which it appeared to dip a toe in the water of backing future tuner mandates, though it actually stopped well short of asking the commission to impose them now (see 1705110053).The PowerPoint also referenced an Aitken quote from our Sept. 13 report (see 1709120020) in which he said that “our concern, be it demonstrated by T-Mobile and others, is that, in fact, the free market is not functioning the way that regulators believe it can or should.” That report also quoted Aitken as saying: “To be clear, we’ve not asked for a mandate. We believe in the free market. We hope that the free market can prevail.” The PowerPoint said T-Mobile was the "largest winner of 600 MHz band spectrum" in the incentive auction, and is "working to rapidly deploy competitive wireless services" in that band.
Though NAB and “fellow” ATSC 3.0 petitioners (see 1604130065) “consistently made plain” they aren’t seeking a tuner mandate for fixed or mobile devices, “six different parties representing wireless interests have felt compelled to publicly oppose such a mandate,” said an NAB letter posted Monday in FCC docket 16-142. “It is curious that some key players in the wireless industry display such great fear over the potential of increased competition for mobile video delivery,” said NAB, referring to letters filed in the past two weeks by Ethertronics, Ericsson, Motorola Mobility, Nokia, Qualcomm and T-Mobile. All opposed 3.0 reception in smartphones as impractical and said a mandate requiring it would be a bad idea (see 1709200016). “Why else would this list of companies fear a ghost?” asked NAB. “If anything, the Commission should recognize that this advocacy demonstrates the potential of Next Gen TV to create real competition in the marketplace. Indeed, it may be one of the strongest arguments for moving forward to approve the use of Next Gen TV as quickly as possible.”
NAB isn't asking the FCC to alter the 39-month repacking timeline, but wants Commissioner Brendan Carr to “ensure” broadcasters aren’t penalized for missing deadlines “due to circumstances beyond their control,” CEO Gordon Smith said in a meeting Tuesday, recounted a filing posted Friday in docket 12-268. “Ironically, T-Mobile’s constant concern about maintaining the current 39-month timeframe demonstrates that T-Mobile has little or no confidence that the deadline will be met,” it said. NAB also said the FCC should look closely at how T-Mobile’s possible merger with Sprint "may impact how the Commission approaches repacking" (see 1709220056). The meeting also touched on Microsoft’s proposals for reserving channels for white space use in the TV band, the filing said. “It makes no sense to inject a new complexity -- especially for an unproven and thus far failed technology” into the already complicated repacking and ATSC 3.0 transition processes, the group said. It urged the FCC to take up the petitions for reconsideration of the 2010 and 2014 quadrennial ownership reviews: “The prior review was a ‘review’ in name only; it did not take seriously the Commission’s job to determine whether the existing broadcast ownership rules are in the public interest.”
NAB’s language for a possible ATSC 3.0 simulcasting requirement would “permit widespread service loss,” said the American Cable Association, AT&T, Charter Communications, Dish Network and Verizon in a meeting for the American Television Alliance with Chief Michelle Carey and others in the Media Bureau Tuesday, said a filing posted Friday in docket 16-142. Though ATVA said it’s pleased broadcasters now seem willing to accept a simulcasting requirement (see 1709110032), the pay-TV ally said there’s no evidence to back an NAB proposal that the requirement sunset in three years, and the agency should require the simulcasts to be “the same” instead of “substantially similar” as NAB proposed. ATVA said NAB-proposed exceptions to the sameness requirement, such as for locally targeted commercials, were largely reasonable. The FCC should also block broadcasters from simulcasting only the least popular content, ATVA said. “If a station transmits a FOX affiliate and a home shopping channel on ATSC 3.0, nobody will be happy if the station simulcasts only the home shopping channel on ATSC 1.0.” The FCC should require simulcast broadcasts be of a certain quality level, that broadcasters give notice of the transition to viewers and MVPDs, and require that the simulcast broadcasts reach a specific percentage of the station’s coverage area, ATVA said. It’s pleased NAB proposed broadcasters rely on A/321 and A/322 and opposed an NAB proposal to allow low-power TV stations to flash cut. “We are cautiously optimistic to see what appears to be an emerging consensus on issues related to simulcasting,” ATVA said.
Lack of qualified tower crews will start delaying projects and affecting subsequent phases by the end of Phase 2 of the repacking, American Tower Corp. told FCC Incentive Auction Task Force Chair Jean Kiddoo and IATF staff Tuesday, recounted a filing in docket 16-306. ATC said the tower company and broadcasters made progress in repack efforts, but stations are “limited by the number of qualified broadcast tower crews.” The presentation pointed to a lack of qualified RF engineers as limiting the ability of broadcasters to meet the 39-month repack timeline. The large number of complex projects in Phase 2 “presents a major challenge to ATC and those affected repack stations,” the company said. ATSC 3.0 won’t impact the schedule, it said, and a “majority” of repacked broadcasters are “adding vertical polarization to their new channel antennas in anticipation of conversion" to 3.0. ATC said it and broadcasters are “waiting on the release of reimbursement funding approvals to fully engage material vendors and construction crews.”
Add Qualcomm and Ethertronics, a supplier of embedded antennas and RF components for mobile devices, to companies opposing an ATSC 3.0 reception in smartphones requirement and saying an FCC mandate would be a bad idea. The issue has been a hotbed for discussion in docket 16-142 for the past 10 days as the commission works toward meeting its self-imposed deadline of releasing by year-end an order authorizing voluntary deployment of 3.0 (see 1709180039). Qualcomm “broadly agrees” with T-Mobile’s Sept. 11 white paper (see 1709120020) detailing “significant challenges associated with supporting ATSC 3.0 reception in new mobile devices.” The chipmaker said “any proposal to mandate that mobile devices incorporate support for ATSC 3.0 should be out of the question.” Requiring 3.0 support in mobile devices “would unduly impact device performance, the efficient use of spectrum, and mobile device competition,” said the company. “ATSC 3.0 receiver operation can cause interference to 4G LTE and 5G radios operating in the same device." Ethertronics said challenges of “incorporating both 600 MHz LTE and ATSC 3.0 technologies” in a single smartphone are “substantial.” There are “practical limits to the acceptable size” of a mobile device that consumers will be “willing to purchase,” it said.
Many questions remain about what happens to smartphones after they're stolen, Brian Daly, AT&T chief technology officer-strategic standards, told the FCC Technological Advisory Council quarterly meeting Tuesday. Daly co-chairs the mobile device theft prevention work group, focused on one of the key issues before TAC the past few years. TAC got updates Tuesday from its working groups in a meeting at the FCC with work in progress on final reports.