TV Antenna Rules Debated in Filings on Spectrum Reallocation

Whether the FCC should promulgate rules for TV antennas came up in several filings, posted to docket 10-235, on a rulemaking notice setting the stage for the agency to hold incentive auctions if it gets congressional authority. The NAB and Association for Maximum Service Television said the regulator ought to look into requiring antennas to carry labels outlining their performance. That filing and others said labeling won’t overcome technical hurdles (CD March 11 p6)to designing antennas so portable devices can get mobile DTV in the VHF band, where the commission seeks to voluntarily move some stations. Consumer electronics industry filings said the FCC lacks authority to take any action on antennas.

CTIA repeated many of its oft-made arguments on why carriers need more spectrum, and generally backed the FCC proposal for a voluntary incentive auction. The Wireless Internet Service Providers Association said any TV channel repacking arrangement by the agency should take into account the need its members have to make use of unlicensed spectrum in the white spaces between TV channels.

"The noise problem significantly affecting VHF reception cannot be resolved by antenna standards,” the NAB and MSTV said jointly. MSTV is set to be absorbed into NAB. “Even if antenna performance standards are adopted and the improvements result in better reception -- far from a certainty -- the benefits of these marginally improved antennas would not be realized for many years to come until consumers began to replace their existing receivers and/or antennas,” said a filing by the owners of 230 TV stations. They include Allbritton, Granite, Gray, Local TV, McGraw-Hill, Media General, Meredith, Nexstar and Tribune.

NAB and MSTV want the commission to “explore” requiring antenna labels. “The label would advise consumers of the bands that the antenna can receive (e.g., UHF, high VHF, low VHF), subject to agreed industry performance criteria,” the groups said. They also asked the FCC to “require a standardized measurement procedure and metrics for claiming adequate performance in the different TV frequency bands.” That’s because antenna makers don’t follow “uniform test procedures and acceptability criteria,” so a manufacturer could state its product gets signals from a TV band when “performance actually is inadequate,” NAB and MSTV said.

RadioShack and the CEA opposed antenna standard requirements, with each saying the commission has no statutory authority in that area. They said the All Channel Receiver Act, cited by the regulator as potentially letting it regulate antennas, doesn’t give the commission much authority. Section 303(s) lets the FCC require TV receivers be able to get all frequencies allocated by the agency, RadioShack said. “But it does not necessarily follow that the Commission has authority” to “dictate the precise features of antennas” or “mandate performance of the receiver or antenna,” the retailer said. The agency “is seeking to impose minimum performance standards, a power Congress specifically said it was not providing to the Commission, not to ensure that receivers are capable of receiving all channels, but to improve low-VHF reception,” the company said: “This effort significantly exceeds” FCC authority.

It’s “telling” for CEA that the rulemaking notice noted that the commission hasn’t regulated antennas, “precisely because it has never been able to demonstrate the ability, authority, or need to do so,” the group said. The act doesn’t give the agency “authority to set minimum performance standards on indoor antennas, as the Commission argues in the” rulemaking, the group continued. “If anything, the legislative history behind the All Channel Receiver Act, clearer than most, specifically limits the Commission’s power."

T-Mobile, in a filing made before disclosing its plan to be bought by AT&T, said it supported the FCC’s proposal, including adding co-primary allocations for fixed and mobile services in the UHF and VHF bands. “Doing so would provide enhanced flexibility, spur investment and innovation, promote more intensive use of the U/V Bands, and facilitate increased deployment of wireless broadband services,” T-Mobile said. It said the commission should also “move forward with additional measures, including implementing voluntary incentive auctions for the U/V Bands, to ensure the supply of spectrum for mobile broadband services is not further outstripped by the demand for those services."

"The proposals outlined in the FCC’s NPRM coupled with an incentive auction would allow broadcasters to continue to offer over-the-air television, unless they voluntarily decide to surrender their license, would facilitate the deployment of promising new technology, and would afford participating broadcasters an infusion of capital, as well as generating a significant financial contribution to the U.S. Treasury,” CTIA said. “When weighing the benefits of reallocating underutilized broadcast spectrum, the Commission must take into account that consumer demand for wireless broadband services and the spectrum required to meet that demand vastly outweigh consumer demand and spectrum needs for over-the-air television."

Channel sharing shouldn’t “artificially increase the number of stations with carriage rights,” said DirecTV. The DBS company has room for channels with carriage rights, but hasn’t reserved capacity for unanticipated new channels without carriage rights, the company said. Channel sharing also shouldn’t affect past determinations of distant signal eligibility, even if service contours are changed, it said. Cablevision said the FCC should “clarify that a station’s must-carry rights will not be diminished or enlarged by entering a sharing arrangement or relocating incidental to a sharing arrangement."

"While wireless technology developers, equipment providers, and mobile broadband service providers are continuing to upgrade their networks and user devices to make more efficient use of the current spectrum licensed for mobile broadband operations, wireless technology enhancements and network upgrades alone will not be nearly enough to meet the incredible level of growth in mobile data demand discussed above,” Qualcomm said. “Additional mobile broadband spectrum -- including spectrum that would be made available via voluntary incentive auctions of the television broadcast spectrum as covered in the NPRM -- is critically necessary.”