DTV

Broadcast to Broadband

Ron Tang — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

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 Task Force recommended that spectrum efficiency and innovation could be enhanced by reallocating unused and underutilized spectrum for both flexible-use… more

New Television, Old Politics

Articles — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:27:00 -0500

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 Galperin, an assistant professor at the Annenberg School for Communications, University of Southern California, brings this story into the 21st… more

Public Safety at Stake

Communications — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:00:00 -0400

A New America Event
10/18/2005 - 12:00pm

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 auction to commercial broadband services. Senators will also consider whether the vacant, unassigned channels between channels 2 and 51 should be opened for unlicensed access by public safety agencies for mobile data networks and for other commercial and community wireless broadband networks.

Senator John McCain and 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer are leading the long-delayed campaign to ensure better disaster preparedness by moving a handful of analog TV stations off spectrum that are badly needed to ensure interoperability for our nation's first responders. Beyond voice communication, other panelists will describe the benefits of mobile, high-speed public safety data networks that will require access to the sort of high-penetration airwaves that currently lie fallow as unassigned TV channels and "guard bands" in every community nationwide.

Completing the DTV Transition

Wireless Future — Wed, 09 Jun 2004 15:00:00 -0400