FCC wants more spectrum

[WPXE ION]

Thank Google, Microsoft, and the current administration for this one folks. If you think picture quality is bad now with multicasting, just wait until the future when the FCC tries to move us all on to just a handful of transmitted signals.

Its called "The National Broadband Plan."

FCC says Take It Or Leave It

Boradcasters prepare for battle

The big picture

The Order

Over-the-air broadcast television, on the other hand, faces challenging long-term trends. The percentage of households viewing television solely through over-the-air broadcasts steadily declined over the last decade, from 24% in 1999 to 10% in 2010.89 Since 2005, broadcast TV station revenues have declined 26%,90 and overall industry employment has declined as well.91

The gap in economic value also reflects two characteristics of broadcast TV licensing constraints. First, since broadcast TV requires channel interference protections, only a fraction of the total spectrum allocated to broadcast TV is currently being used directly by stations.92 Second, as a universally available, free over-the-air medium, television broadcasting has long been required to fulfill certain public interest and technical requirements. It is important to allow television broadcasting to continue to fulfill these obligations to local communities, while at the same time utilizing less spectrum, thus freeing up additional airwaves for mobile broadband. This could yield more service to local communities overall—broadcast television that consumers have always received along with more and better mobile broadband connectivity.

The FCC should initiate a rulemaking proceeding to reallocate 120 megahertz from the broadcast TV bands. The proceeding should pursue four sets of actions in parallel to achieve this objective. In addition, the FCC should take a fifth set of actions to increase efficiency of spectrum use in the broadcast TV bands.