Wireless Future Program
 

DTV Transition & Media Reform

In February 2006, Congress passed an early 2009 "hard deadline" for the nation’s transition from analog to digital television (DTV) transmission. The bill reallocates more than $40 billion of TV broadcast spectrum for auction to wireless broadband services and to public safety. It also earmarks spectrum revenues to finance a converter box subsidy for all low- and middle-income consumers who rely on over-the-air TV -- a plan originally proposed by New America. With a hard deadline and consumer subsidy now law, New America is helping to lead an increasingly broad public interest coalition to address other, related issues in the DTV transition debate, including the expanded public interest obligations for broadcasters and the opening of unused TV channels in each geographic market for unlicensed community wireless broadband use.

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Articles

Broadcast to Broadband

Although much public attention has focused on the US digital TV transition -- and the resulting reallocation of analog TV channels by auction to wireless carriers -- the US Federal Communications Commission will decide how to reallocate an even larger swath of prime TV band spectrum this year: the unused “white space” between occupied DTV channels. This reallocation of unused spectrum from broadcasting to broadband permits unlicensed access for both fixed and mobile applications.

In 2002, the FCC’s Spectrum Policy… more

New Television, Old Politics

When the definitive history of the 20th century is written, America’s transition to digital TV (DTV) may come to be viewed as the classic illustration of what can go wrong with a high tech industrial policy. For more than 20 years this transition has been taking place. It has already been the subject of half a dozen books and countless popular articles, let alone thousands of pages of Congressional Testimony and tens of thousands of pages of FCC comments. Hernan… more

Onward, Christian Moguls

Vision is a favorite topic of Dr. Garth W. Coonce, a minor Christian-broadcasting magnate from Marion, Illinois. In his monthly newsletter, Partnership, he often muses on the sacred visions that have inspired him to amass 16 television stations, creating a 24-hour network that beams charismatic preachers like Creflo Dollar and Benny Hinn into devout homes. Coonce also likes to share the communiques he still receives from the Almighty, who occasionally instructs him to expand his media holdings into, say,… more

Local TV News Archives as a Public Good

It is well established that political information shares the characteristics of a public good (Downs 1957; Popkin 1991). People won’t acquire the socially optimal amount of political information because they can’t reap the full benefit of their investment. Recognizing that a well-informed populace is essential to a healthy democracy, the government grants major media substantial public subsidies and special legal protections (Cook 1998). In return, the media take on the costs of monitoring the government that individual members of the… more

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Policy Papers

The Lobby that Cried Wolf

In an October 2007 letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), executives from the four largest TV networks told the Commission that proposals to allow low-power Wi-Fi type devices to operate on vacant TV channels, “could cause permanent damage to over-the-air digital television reception." Such a dire warning would ring alarm bells for policymakers, if not for the fact that similar nightmare scenarios have been predicted before.

Benjamin Lennett | October 2008

From TV to Public Safety

Abstract

The events surrounding Hurricane Katrina and the 9/11 attacks demonstrated that the communications systems used by first responders in the United States are not adequate to meet the challenges of a post-9/11 world. The U.S. system is based on assumptions that local agencies should have maximal flexibility at the expense of standardization and regional coordination, that commercial carriers and municipal systems have little role to play, that public safety should not share spectrum or network infrastructure, and that narrowband… more

October 26, 2006

Building Constituencies for Spectrum Policy Change - First Report

In early 2006, the Wireless Future Program at the New America Foundation, an independent think tank, launched a new initiative to advance its work on public interest spectrum policy by strengthening connections with -- and service to -- diverse public constituencies. NAF enlisted CIMA: Center for International Media Action to convene a group to advise its Wireless Future Program from the perspective of communities that have a vested stake in the debate, but whose interests are not well represented by… more

September 2006

How Mass Media Use Crisis Communications for Political Gain

This paper was submitted to the American Political Science Association 2006  Annual Meeting.

It’s a common observation that crises such as wars, recessions, stock market meltdowns, ethics scandals, and natural catastrophes often drive the public policymaking process. A crisis reveals a problem and then a public consensus emerges that policymakers must do something about it. The policy debate then centers on the best means to solve the problem.

Interest groups well understand the political logic of such crisis moments. Accordingly,… more

J.H. Snider | August 30, 2006

Populating the Vacant Channels

There are vacant channels between broadcast television stations in every media market. This spectrum can be used by unlicensed devices without interfering with television viewing.

An unlicensed allocation of these bands would be the most productive way to use this spectrum. Unlicensed spectrum is a proven way to generate technical and commercial innovation; promotes healthy diversity in markets and regulatory models; and complements the licensed allocation in the nearby 700 MHz band.

A broad cross-section of society would benefit, including… more

August 8, 2006

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Events

From TV to Public Safety

After watching first responder communications systems fail on 9/11 and after Hurricane Katrina, with tragic results, the vital importance of spectrum management for public safety communications has taken center stage in recent years. Congress recently passed legislation to reallocate 24 MHz of prime spectrum from TV to public safety in 2009, as part of America’s transition from analog to digital television. Currently, this new spectrum is set to be managed under the same assumptions and orthodoxies as current public safety… more

10/26/2006 - 12:15pm
10/26/2006 - 1:45pm

Should Vacant TV Channels Be Opened for Wireless Broadband?

At its recent markup, the House Commerce Committee included language in the digital TV transition bill directing the FCC to complete its proposed rulemaking to open up vacant, unused channels in the TV band spectrum (so-called "white space") for unlicensed wireless broadband use (Docket 04-186).

The reallocation of prime airwaves from "broadcast to broadband" has been a major impetus behind DTV legislation. In May 2004, the FCC issued a proposed rulemaking to allow "smart" wireless broadband devices to… more

11/15/2005 - 12:00pm
11/15/2005 - 2:00pm

Public Safety at Stake

From the fire fighters who died on 9/11 to the rescue workers struggling to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, the absence of reliable and interoperable voice and data communications among public safety agencies has become an urgent national dilemma. Within the coming weeks, the Senate Commerce Committee will mark up DTV legislation likely to impose a hard deadline on the clearance of TV channels 52 to 69 -- freeing up precious spectrum for public safety voice interoperability and for… more

10/18/2005 - 12:00pm

DTV 201: How the DTV Transition Can Move The Nation from "Broadcast to Broadband"

We've all heard the dire statistics. The U.S. has fallen to 16th in the world in broadband penetration. The dominant cable and DSL duopoly is failing to bring affordable broadband connectivity

09/07/2005 - 12:09pm

The Politics of America's DTV Transition: Will the Telecom Act Rewrite Repeat the Fiasco of the 1996 Giveaway?

In the Telecommunications Act of 1996, local TV broadcasters won free use of spectrum worth tens of billions of dollars. In the decade since, broadcasters have sought a seemingly endless array of additional subsidies -- including more spectrum, tax breaks, the broadcast flag, DTV tuner mandate, and DTV multicasting must-carry rights -- to speed their DTV transition. A new book by New America Foundation Senior Research Fellow J.H. Snider explains how these lobbying feats were accomplished. He… more

05/24/2005 - 12:00pm
05/24/2005 - 2:00pm

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