 | |
| |
TechnologyDaily Mobile
From Broadcast To Broadband
by Drew Clark
America's transition to digital television is not over yet. Television viewers and consumers still need to be prepared for the big switchover on Feb. 17, 2009, when the wide swath of radio frequencies currently used by broadcasters will be trimmed one-quarter.
In Washington, however, the long-running spectrum wars between broadcasters and everyone else has ended. The broadcasters lost. They will relinquish 18 of the choicest channels in the airwaves when analog broadcasting stops.
Now a new war is emerging as digital television vies for priority over the needs of rural, high-speed Internet access. It has become a battle between television executives and manufacturers on the one hand, and high-tech and public interests on the other. Broadcasters hope to draw a new line in the sand and forestall further encroachments on their airwaves.
Taking issue with the broadcasters are seven senators on the Commerce Committee from both the committee's "farm team" and its high-tech vanguard. Rural-state senators like Chairman Ted Stevens, R-Alaska; Byron Dorgan, D-N.D.; and Gordon Smith, R-Ore., are making common cause with tech-focused legislators like George Allen, R-Va.; Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.; and John Sununu, R-N.H. They see an opportunity in the air.
At a hearing last week, Allen said: "We want to unleash the power of the advancements in technology and innovation to develop wireless broadband to areas that presently don't receive it, particularly in rural areas where, as my friend [Republican Sen. Conrad Burns] from Montana says, 'There's a lot of dirt between light bulbs.'"
Moving Beyond The 'Vast Wasteland'
Broadcasters transmit television at frequencies ranging from 54 megahertz (MHz) to 806 MHz, using 67 channels of six MHz apiece. Those 402 MHz are widely considered to be the choicest frequencies in the skies.
Comparing frequencies to real estate, some are like a barren desert, some are swampland and some are beachfront property because signals in the most sought-after frequencies are cheap to send and easy to receive. They pass through walls, trees and high-rise buildings. It is four times cheaper to use the 54 MHz-to-806 MHz zone than the 2.4 gigahertz band currently used for wireless broadband using Wi-Fi technology, say companies like Cisco Systems, Intel and Microsoft.
After the big DTV "hard date," broadcasters will relinquish 108 MHz of spectrum, or channels 52-69. Of that total, 24 MHz will go to public-safety communications. The majority will be auctioned to private carriers, which is expected to recoup more than $12 billion in revenue for the government and billions more for consumers in savings on cellular services.
But now techies are demanding an answer to a new question: Why should broadcasters keep the remaining 294 MHz? The current allocation of television channels was done under analog technology, which required the creation of "white spaces," or blank intervals, between channels.
Some of that was done to account for adjacent local markets. In Washington, D.C., for example, the major commercial broadcasters are located on channels 4, 5, 7 and 9. Baltimore's ABC, NBC and CBS affiliates are at channels 2, 11 and 13. Richmond's are at 6, 8 and 12. Spacing between channels is even wider in the higher-number channels.
"There is a minimum of 24 MHz of 'white space' in channels 21-51, throughout the New York City TV market -- the most congested market in the country," Kevin Kahn, a senior fellow at Intel, told the Senate Commerce Committee last week. There is at least 114 MHz and 126 MHz of white space in areas with fewer stations like Honolulu, Hawaii, and Charleston, W.Va., Kahn said. And there are 156 MHz and 174 MHz in Anchorage, Alaska, and Billings, Mont.
The only technical requirement to use the frequencies is that radio circuitry is able to detect what channels are free in a given city -- a trivial task, according to Kahn. "The ratio of unused to used channels is high -- more than five to one," said J. H. Snider, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation. "It is no wonder that many have called the TV band spectrum a 'vast wasteland' of underutilized spectrum."
Forcing FCC Action
The shift from broadcast to broadband has not been lost over at the FCC. Under former Chairman Michael Powell in May 2004, the agency approved preliminary rules for tech companies to transmit in the vacant channels. Then-Commissioner Kevin Martin concurred but added, "I remain concerned about the proceeding's impact on the broadcasters and their transition to digital television."
Since Martin became chairman, Powell's rulemaking has languished. Now the techies are taking their case to Capitol Hill.
Last year, Rep. Jay Inslee, D-Wash. -- whose district includes Microsoft's corporate campus -- offered an amendment to the language on the DTV transition that would have instructed the FCC to finish the proceeding. Inslee said the amendment was "aimed at freeing up wasted portions of the television broadcast spectrum." It was stripped in the Senate.
Now senators who have traditionally been more deferential to broadcasters' concerns -- including Allen and Stevens -- have introduced separate bills on white spaces.
Steven's measure, S. 2332, would open channels 5 through 51 for unlicensed wireless broadband devices and require the FCC to design rules protecting dominant firms from harmful interference within 180 days. Allen's bill, S. 2327, would require FCC action within 180 days. He would force broadcasters to share the entire zone from channels 2 through 51.
Broadcasters say white-spaces technology is not mature and is bound to cause interference.
"We fundamentally want to follow the engineering, but mobile portable devices in congested areas are problematic at this point in time," said David Donovan, president of the Association of Maximum Service TV. "If you force the government to write interference protection rules within 180 days, they will be inadequate."
The Impact On DTV
Broadcasters have an ally in the television manufacturers -- with whom they so frequently sparred over DTV. In a letter to Senate Commerce last week, eight TV manufacturers said "unduly hasty action ... could seriously disrupt the digital television transition."
"Our company believes it would be prudent to wait at least until the final channel allocations are complete for the digital stations, and some would argue not until February 2009," said John Taylor, vice president of public affairs for LG Electronics USA, one of the eight companies. "The reality is that it is too soon to do it today."
Microsoft -- and many legislators -- clearly disagree. Citing the ability for unlicensed wireless devices to share the spectrum at 5.8 gigahertz with military radar technology, an Allen aide said, "I have a hard time believing that if it is good enough for the military, it is not going to be good enough for the broadcasters."
"Wireless broadband devices can be deployed without creating the risk of harmful interference," says Marc Berejka, senior director of public policy at Microsoft. "Because unlicensed devices are mass-market devices that can be built by any number of manufacturers, they can be put into the stream of commerce at high volumes at exceedingly low prices."
For Microsoft, now is the time to jumpstart the broadband field with a third, viable competitor to cable operators and the Bells.
NEW FEATURE
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
-Advertisement-
