DTV Transition & Media Reform

Spectrum sensing, of the kind that's required to allow wireless devices to use TV white spaces to access the Internet without causing harmful interference, is a “proven and well-understood technology,” the New America Foundation said in a white paper released Monday. The group said the goal of the paper is to counter “the torrent of misinformation” in arguments made by broadcasters and others opposed to opening the spectrum for unlicensed use by portable devices. Sources said Monday the paper… more

A consortium of consumer groups is planning to urge federal regulators to clarify how much control cellphone companies can have over the messages and services delivered over their networks.

In a petition to be filed with the Federal Communications Commission today, these groups say the agency should prohibit wireless carriers from blocking text messages sent by any company, nonprofit group or political campaign. These groups -- including Public Knowledge, Free Press, Media Access Project, Consumers Union and the New… more

M2Z Networks may sue the U.S. Federal Communications Commission after the agency turned down its request for radio frequencies for a national broadband wireless network.

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...M2Z wants to deliver a free service, supported partly by locally targeted search advertising, at 384Kbps downstream and 128Kbps upstream. People would only have to give a valid e-mail address or… more

...[The National Association of Broadcasters and the Association for Maximum Service TV] will stress their support for using wireless spectrum to further rural broadband deployment through fixed systems, officials said Monday. Meanwhile, they'll push hard against plans to use the TV band for mobile broadband services -- particularly involving devices that rely on spectrum sensing to determine when they'll work...

[NAB President David Rehr] and MSTV President David Donovan kicked off the lobbying Monday with a joint letter sent… more

...In a Sept. 10 letter, the National Association of Broadcasters endorsed FCC efforts to permit white spaces to be used for offering wireless broadband to stationary gadgets in rural areas. But it reiterated that mobile devices operating in the band would wreak havoc with DTV signals and make it impossible for affected parties to pinpoint the causes or locations of the interference. Following the briefing, broadcasters headed for the FCC and Capitol Hill to appeal directly to FCC Chairman Kevin… more

New America Foundation responds to concerns about white space technology interfering with adjacent channels that are used by broadcasters:

Using adjacent channel leakage ratio and similar measures to deal with any interference in adjacent channels will keep white spaces devices from causing harmful interference to TV broadcasts, a coalition led by the New America Foundation told the FCC. The complexity of wideband data waveforms across the CMRS, PCS and now the Advanced Wireless Services bands led to "sophisticated tools," not… more

Before theFEDERAL COMMUNICATIONS COMMISSIONWASHINGTON, DC 20554

In the Matter ofImplementation of Section 4(g) of the Cable Television Consumer Protection Act of 1992Home Shopping Station Issues, MM Docket No. 93-8

COMMENTS OF

CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER BENTON FOUNDATION NEW AMERICA FOUNDATION COMMON CAUSEOFFICE OF COMMUNICATION, INC., UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

The use of scarce and valuable television spectrum for home shopping is antithetical to the public interest… more

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

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

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