DTV Transition & Media Reform

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

To view Ed Thomas's remarks from the New America Foundation event, "DTV 201: How the DTV Transition Can Move the Nation from 'Broadcast to Broadband,'" please refer to the PDF linked below:

On July 19, 2005, J.H. Snider moderated a panel discussion hosted by the House Future of American Media Caucus on Capitol Hill. Attached are his introductory comments.

On July 12, 2005, Michael Calabrese testified before the full Senate Commerce Committee about issues regarding the nation's transition from analog to digital television (DTV) broadcasting. Below is a summary of his testimony. To access the full transcript, refer to the PDF file linked below.

TV channels 52 to 69 have become a vast wasteland of underutilized airwaves that are urgently needed for both public safety and for wireless broadband services. Because of the urgent need to reallocate these… more

For the complete document, please see the attached PDF version below.

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

In an age of telecommunications convergence and Internet TV, DTV must-carry is a historical relic that nevertheless is likely to be preserved and expanded. Given that political reality, this paper makes two recommendations: 1) in the long-term, must-carry should be sunset and transformed into a blanket network neutrality rule for the Internet TV era, and 2) in the short-term, broadcasters should be held to quantifiable and enforceable public interest standards in exchange for any expansion of must-carry.

For the… more

On February 10, 2005 the FCC rejected a proposal to expand broadcasters' must-carry rights on cable TV systems to include the multiple channels of programming that each station can transmit in digital. Now the battle moves to Congress, where House Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX) has promised early action on a comprehensive bill to end the long-delayed DTV transition.

Setting a deadline for the end of analog TV will free up invaluable spectrum for wireless broadband -- and raise billions… more

INTRODUCTION

These reply comments are being filed by a coalition of the New America Foundation and other entities (NAF et al.) listed on the cover page. These entities include nonprofits, corporations, and professors of engineering, and they have joined in urging the Commission to complete positive action in its proposals in this proceeding. These entities have explicitly reserved the right to file reply comments individually. These coalition comments only concern issues on which the above entities were able to reach… more

SUMMARY

Until advances in technology allowed shared access to the white spaces within the broadcast band, most notably the empty “guard bands” between stations on the TV dial, broadcasters could continue to expand their private use of public spectrum gradually, and to the benefit of themselves alone. Thus, while broadcasters have insisted on rigid protections for guard bands from Part 15 devices, broadcasters have successfully lobbied for increased power to expand operation into the guard bands and have supported manufacture… more