While the FCC broadcast incentive auction lasting into multiple stages would appear to give supporters of ATSC 3.0 more time to finish their standard and secure regulatory approval before the repacking, boosters for the new standard told us they don't see it that way. “I don't see more time as a positive or negative for the standard's adoption,” said Sinclair Vice President-Advanced Technology Mark Aitken, an advocate for the new standard. “I don't think it helps anybody for things to go slowly,” said ATSC President Mark Richer. “It was never a concern that anybody would be waiting on ATSC 3.0.” ATSC recently announced the completion of some additional layers for the new standard (see 1610050056).
As ATSC enters Q4, and with the progress being made on ATSC 3.0, “I feel like we’re entering the fourth quarter of an exciting college rivalry football game,” ATSC President Mark Richer said Wednesday in a football-laced commentary in the October issue of The Standard, ATSC’s monthly newsletter. With ATSC members having just approved three more standards in the suite that will make up the ATSC 3.0 system, ATSC “is in the red-zone, about ready to score its final winning touchdown,” said Richer. “After three hard-fought quarters, marked by lots of blocking and tackling and some huge plays, victory is imminent. Team ATSC is on track to bring the world’s first Internet Protocol-based television broadcast standard across the goal line.” Richer’s commentary didn't mention the latest delay in elevating ATSC 3.0's A/341 video document to the status of proposed standard because framers haven’t chosen a winning high-dynamic-range system. Nevertheless, “with the fourth quarter upon us, broadcasters, manufacturers and especially consumers are expected to win big with Next Gen TV,” said Richer in his commentary. “Winning in the end will take more than a couple of field goals, but I don’t think it will take any Hail Mary passes either.”
The FCC's Incentive Auction Task Force is seeking comment on a proposed repacking plan that would divide repacked broadcasters into 10 staggered phases, prioritize the reassignment of TV stations in the wireless band, and attempt to minimize the number of times consumers have to rescan channels, said Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake and IATF Deputy Chairwoman Jean Kiddoo on a news media call Friday. Officials said the plan, filed in docket 16-306, takes broadcaster concerns such as a shortage of tower crews and the short repacking period into consideration. Since the phased plan will give broadcasters earlier notice, they will have more time to prepare for the repacking, Lake said.
ATSC’s Technology Group 3 for the second time delayed picking a winning high-dynamic-range technology for ATSC 3.0 for two months by extending the candidate standard period on the A/341 ATSC 3.0 video document to Nov. 30, ATSC President Mark Richer confirmed in a Thursday email. “I am hopeful that TG3 will approve a ballot to elevate A/341 to Proposed Standard during its meeting on November 17th,” Richer told us. He gave no explanation for the latest delay in choosing an HDR system for ATSC 3.0, which was to have been completed July 31 before being delayed to Sept. 30 because ATSC 3.0's framers wanted to “get it done right,” they said in June (see 1606160052). The delays on HDR are reminiscent of the contentious debate within ATSC to choose a winning audio codec for ATSC 3.0, which resulted in a monthslong impasse before ATSC 3.0's framers, in a compromise, settled on Dolby AC-4 for North America, MPEG-H for South Korea (see 1604210053).
Sinclair Chief Financial Officer Chris Ripley told an investor conference that ATSC 3.0 is “on track” to be approved by the FCC at the beginning of next year, Wells Fargo analyst Marci Ryvicker emailed investors. Ripley said Sinclair retracted its predictions about political advertising revenue (see 1609210075) due to a “lack of visibility,” Ryvicker said. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump's fundraising efforts are late, though Ryvicker said it's possible he could make up for lost time: “It sounds to us like the door is open to maybe meeting the old political Q4 numbers, but again there is no visibility.”
The New York Police Department’s unprecedented use Monday of a 90-character Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) to help catch suspect Ahmad Khan Rahami in connection with the weekend’s New York and New Jersey bombings typified how “new technology can be utilized to improve public alerting,” said John Lawson, executive director of the AWARN Alliance, in a Wednesday statement.
Cable operators with networks that are mostly fiber shouldn't have to labor under cable signal leakage rules, said FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly in a blog post Friday. Small cable operators use small airplanes to check their networks with RF sensors to look for signal leakage from loose connections, damaged paint or cracked coaxial cables, at a cost of thousands of dollars per system -- "money that can be used to curtail rate increases or expand the network’s reach to unserved homes," O'Rielly said. Pointing to the agency's now-moribund attempts in 2012 to update its cable signal leakage rules -- which was opposed by Verizon, NTCA and others (see 1212130055) -- O'Rielly said "substantial and valid concerns were raised about other ideas in that item." He also urged the agency to focus strictly on updating its rules governing cable signal leakage in systems with a sizable fiber footprint. Since fiber systems don't produce RF leakage, he said, making them not subject to such rules would cut compliance costs and could partially incentivize fiber deployments. O'Rielly didn't give specific recommendations on how the rule should be changed. American Cable Association in a statement said the blog item "is another good example of Commissioner O’Reilly’s knack for identifying common sense updates to the Commission’s rules" and it "would welcome further discussion of this matter, which could eliminate needless burdens" on smaller cable operators. NCTA didn't comment. At an Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers lunch Friday, O'Rielly said: "The impact in the scheme of things might not sound earth shattering, but can quickly become significant. It seems to me a reasonable minor step we should be able to make without much controversy." According to his speech made available online, O'Rielly also said he would like the AM revitalization proceeding split off relief for the main studio rule from the final NPRM so it can be completed by year's end. He said the FCC shouldn't just approve the ATSC 3.0 standard but rewrite its rules so broadcasters can offer 3.0 in an effort to "avoid any tech mandates or overly prescriptive measures." Since "both adopting the new standard and removing barriers to allow flexibility and choice of technologies get to the same end point, why not pursue the one that sets the stage for ATSC 4.0 or 5.0?" he said.
The FCC should define the protected contour for TV stations using ATSC 3.0 just as it does for the current standard, NAB told staff from the Office of Engineering and Technology and the Media Bureau in a meeting Tuesday. “Next Generation TV will have the same interference characteristics as the current television transmission standard, and petitioners have requested no changes to the emission mask or power levels,” said a filing posted Thursday to docket 16-142. “There is no need for the Commission to make any changes to its regulatory processes for applications associated with or affected by the use of the new standard.” The association also continued its recent push to get the agency to issue an NPRM on ATSC 3.0, which CEO Gordon Smith has said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has said could come in months (see 1609070065).
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler again pressed for action on public safety communications, during a Senate Commerce Committee hearing Thursday. He promised many updates on the commission’s broadband and spectrum efforts, noting items to come up in the final months of the Obama administration. "Our work is far from done," Wheeler told senators.
Correction: What NAB CEO Gordon Smith said FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told him is that the agency would take up ATSC 3.0 once it finished some other ongoing proceedings (see 1609130043), (see 1609070065).