Sinclair’s proposed buy of Tribune didn’t get special FCC treatment, said Chairman Ajit Pai in a letter released Tuesday responding to correspondence from House Commerce ranking member Frank Pallone, D-N.J., House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Mike Doyle, D-Pa., and House Commerce Oversight Subcommittee ranking member Diana DeGette, D-Colo. (see 1708140058). “My actions have been motivated by my belief that a strong over the air broadcast service advances the public interest," Pai said. “They have not been fueled by a desire to help any particular company.”
Nokia added its voice to the growing chorus of handset makers that oppose a possible FCC mandate for ATSC 3.0 reception in smartphones, though the commission hasn't proposed one. “Such a mandate would present technical challenges and disserve the public interest,” said Nokia in a letter posted Friday in docket 16-142. Nokia, which sold its smartphone business to Microsoft, joins Ericsson and Motorola in arguing that 3.0 reception in smartphones is a bad idea because it would require handset form-factor changes that consumers would reject or would degrade cellular coverage performance (see 1709150039 and 1709130050). T-Mobile was the first to cite its opposition, alleging Sinclair is oversimplifying the complexities of building 3.0 into smartphones, and a mandate wouldn't serve the public interest (see 1709120020). Sinclair denies seeking a mandate but said overcoming complexities of 3.0 in smartphones is a worthy challenge. The FCC has a self-imposed deadline of a 2017 order authorizing 3.0 as a final voluntary standard (see 1702230060). Nokia is “actively working with several carriers to supply equipment for expeditious deployment of networks” supporting the 600 MHz band, the company wrote. For smartphones to receive 3.0, they would need to operate at “additional frequencies, possibly as low as 470 MHz,” Nokia said. If the same antenna is used to receive 3.0 signals in the 470-608 MHz band in addition to the 600 MHz band, “antenna performance is likely to degrade,” it said. “This antenna performance degradation can directly translate into significant loss in the coverage benefit typically provided by these lower frequencies.” Whatever “limited physical space” exists in a smartphone “should be available for more valuable uses than ATSC 3.0,” such as MIMO operation, for which there exists “very valid business justification,” said the company. “A new antenna design” will be needed, it said. “The ATSC 3.0 chip will also need to be accommodated on the device next to the cellular circuitry. The ATSC 3.0 receiver chain will need to be isolated from the cellular receiver chain to mitigate any interference issues.”
The FCC Media Bureau request for more information on Sinclair buying Tribune isn’t a sign of increased scrutiny or hostility toward the deal at the agency (see 1709150041), industry analysts and even opponents of the transaction said in interviews Monday. The information request asked for specifics about many issues that have been raised by opposition group Coalition to Save Local Media (see 1708300053) but is seen to be motivated by procedural concerns rather than FCC agreement with critics of the deal, industry officials said.
The FCC Media Bureau wants more information from Sinclair and Tribune on how their proposed deal would be brought into compliance with ownership rules and specifics on the deal’s effects on news coverage at Tribune’s stations, Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey told the companies in a letter last week. The broadcasters need to describe what “specific steps” the companies will take to comply with the national ownership cap and duopoly rules, she said. As filed, the deal would be 6.5 percent over the cap, and would include overlaps in several markets that wouldn’t be in compliance with ownership rules. Opponents asked the FCC to require more information of Sinclair/Tribune when the transaction was first filed, but the agency denied those requests (see 1708040002). Since then, a perceived lack of specifics about divestitures and the public interest benefits of the deal have been targets of foes (see 1708080067). Many of the public interest benefits listed by Sinclair were based on expanded news coverage, and the information request seeks more precise information about the new company’s plans for local news. The bureau wants information on plans to add local programming and local newscasts to Tribune stations, increase coverage of local government, and to “increase or decrease” the number of journalists and investigative reporters at Tribune stations. Carey also asked for details on how the deal would increase the efficiency of implementing ATSC 3.0, and the impact of the new company’s greater audience reach. The Coalition to Save Local Media praised “scrutiny” of the deal, saying the FCC request would help answer “questions raised by interested parties as well as Members of Congress that have gone unanswered.” The group, which includes Public Knowledge, Dish Network, the Competitive Carriers Association and the Blaze, said that “the FCC and Department of Justice should closely scrutinize this merger and deny it.” Sinclair didn’t comment. After a speech Friday to the Center for Democracy & Technology (see 1709150062), Chairman Ajit Pai declined to comment on the letter, other than to say it "speaks for itself."
T-Mobile Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray met with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Mike O’Rielly and Brendan Carr on the big issues now before the agency of most concern to the company, said a filing in dockets including 12-268. Efforts to deploy incentive auction spectrum and concerns about ATSC 3.0 were among the topics covered. It's important to have "sufficient spectrum in the low, mid, and high bands to support competitive 5G deployments,” T-Mobile said. “The existing 3.5 GHz framework should be revised because the current structure will not drive investment and does not align with international use of the band for 5G. ... [T]he 3.5 GHz spectrum is a core band for 5G deployment around the world and ... the U.S. will miss a huge opportunity if it does not create a structure aligned with global 5G requirements.”
Days after Sinclair struck back against a T-Mobile “technical white paper” filed at the FCC that accused the broadcaster of oversimplifying the complexities of building ATSC 3.0 reception into smartphones (see 1709130050), Ericsson came to T-Mobile’s defense. Ericsson offered “additional comments” why it thinks those complexities would make a 3.0 mandate in smartphones a bad idea, even though the commission hasn’t proposed one and few commenters in the 3.0 proceeding have. The T-Mobile paper also drew the wrath of the AWARN Alliance, which accused the carrier of flip-flopping when it called 3.0-based emergency alerting “inferior” to that of the wireless industry's wireless emergency alerts (WEA) platform.
Motorola Mobility “overstates the complexities" associated with building ATSC 3.0 reception into smartphones (see 1709130050), said Robert Folliard, chairman of the Advanced TV Broadcasting Alliance of low-power TV interests. Folliard’s group is urging the FCC to require ATSC 3.0 reception in smartphones when 3.0 broadcasts become available to 25 percent of the U.S. population. Motorola said that policy position has the company “concerned” because mandating 3.0 smartphone functionality “without regard to consumer demand is not in the public interest,” and would involve “significant technical challenges and limitations.” But Folliard thinks “many of the same issues identified by Motorola are ones that carriers must solve in order to take advantage of the 600 MHz spectrum recently purchased in the auction,” he told us Wednesday. “Regardless, the challenge is worth unraveling since the upside to consumers is so high.”
Motorola Mobility agrees with the FCC's “tentative conclusion” that the ATSC 3.0 transition needs no tuner mandate, and so is “concerned about calls from some parties (none of them equipment manufacturers)” that the commission require 3.0 receivers in smartphones, the company said in an ex parte letter posted Wednesday in docket 16-142.
Building ATSC 3.0 functionality into smartphones takes more than just fast-tracking development of receiver chipsets, said T-Mobile in a “technical white paper” filed Monday at the FCC in docket 16-142. It takes aim at Sinclair plans to have 3.0 chipsets ready for commercialization in smartphones in time for the 2018 holiday selling season (see 1705210001). Sinclair's response is "we're not naive enough to believe you hand somebody a chip and suddenly you’ve got ATSC 3.0 on that phone,” Mark Aitken, Sinclair vice president-advanced technology, told us Tuesday.
If the FCC requires simulcasting of stations transitioning to ATSC 3.0, that rule shouldn’t require identical content on both stations and should have a three-year time limit, NAB said in a Wednesday meeting with Media Bureau Chief Michelle Carey and other staff, said an ex parte filing posted Monday in docket 16-142. NAB has consistently argued against any sort of simulcasting requirement. The association laid out what provisions it would like to see in such a rule, including allowances to let stations demonstrate the capabilities of the new standard for consumers still viewing in 1.0. The FCC should permit stations to “from time to time, transmit programming intended to highlight features and capabilities not available using ATSC 1.0 without transmitting substantially similar content on another station,” the group said. It wants the agency to except localized emergency warnings and allow the simulcasting station to air alternative content to “address, for example, breaking news, features or content that cannot be transmitted using ATSC 1.0.” Broadcasters should be able to get waivers of a simulcast requirement if they can’t find a simulcast partner, NAB said. “Rural markets should not be shut out of innovation solely because they do not have enough broadcast stations to participate in partnership arrangements.” NAB also proposed that the FCC allow broadcasters to rely on both components of the 3.0 physical layer, A/321 and A/322, and that it not require use of A/322 for other services that use 3.0. NAB asked the FCC not to mandate consumer education efforts for the 3.0 move and said it doesn’t object to allowing low-power stations to transition to 3.0 without simulcasting.