As the channel repack enters its final segment-Phase 10-broadcasters are facing some unexpected headwinds in the form of the coronavirus pandemic. In March, the FCC announced that it would give those broadcasters who had not met the May 1 deadline to complete their repack in Phase 9, the opportunity to extend their project into Phase 10-the final phase-which began May 2 and is scheduled to end July 3.As one of the most complex and time-sensitive projects ever undertaken by U.S. broadcasters, nearly 1,000 TV stations are involved in moving their channels to make way for the 600 MHz spectrum that was auctioned off several years ago, to be taken over by the wireless carriers who obtained the winning bids. But it's not only TV stations that have been affected, it's also impacting other tenants on the towers, including FM radio stations.
TV Technology recently sat down with Anthony Flores, owner of AFF Consulting, who has spent the large part of the last several years working with broadcasters on repack projects. Here is an edited transcript:
TV Technology: Welcome Tony, can you give us some background about yourself?
Anthony Flores: I've been an independent contractor since 2007, prior to that I worked for Richland Towers. I was also with AT&T as a director of site development. I've been in the business since 1987 doing either cellular wireless and since 1997 on, mostly broadcast.
I understand the whole process of going from concept design to on the air, it's helped me fill niches wherever they are. I've also worked for tower companies as well as some TV and radio broadcasters.
Anthony Flores (Image credit: Future)TVT: How were things going with your work on the repack prior to March?
AF: Pretty busy. As the repack started to ramp up a few years ago, it was obvious to a lot of broadcasters that they didn't have the internal resources needed for various necessary tasks. For some groups it was engineering and administrative tasks such as RF and structural engineering, planning and design, and entitlement/ permits to get their projects out of the chute. Some broadcasters needed construction management assistance. They wanted people to manage the field effort to get things done, to get the tower modifications, antennas and transmitters changed out. I've pretty much assisted with all of the above.
A lot of groups have been very organized and were looking down the road a lot further so they were working towards all of these tasks much earlier in the process. Some planned to install and use a broadband standby system capable of both their existing and new channel. They worked to have these in place prior to their Phased transition date. Then, they would replace their main antennas at a time that worked for that station. Some elected to go on their standby systems to maintain their current channels while they put all their new channels top-mounted or main systems in place and then cut over to those after the transition dates. They would then go back after the transition and replace their standby antennas.
There were the other groups that were a little less organized or maybe didn't have all the funding they needed. Those groups struggled to do the best they could. Some made their transition just in time and some did not.
The push here at the end has been somewhat of a challenge just because of the nature of the repack: Not having enough resources across the board, be it transmitters, antennas, installers, tower contractors, structural engineers, etc. Those who felt it could be done as quickly as they originally thought may not have understood all of the complexities or didnt quite understand the scope of what it took to fulfill the requests.
So, given that there were already a lot of challenges, go ahead and throw in this pandemic at the last minute and that didnt help.
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TVT: How much of the problem would you attribute to lack of planning as opposed to not being aware that something like this pandemic could have an impact?
AF: How can you be ready for a global pandemic? You already have a lot of headwind and youre already going uphill. Now throw on this 500 pound weight and thats all it took to make a difficult situation worse.
For example, you're working on a building permit, things are pretty much moving along to your planned schedule. Then the pandemic hits. Due to some state or county shelter-in-place orders, some jurisdictions cut their office hours or their staff was sent to work from home. Now your planned schedule doubles or triples. What may have taken four to six weeks now can take eight to 12 weeks or longer.
That's just on the regulatory side. On the field resource side, some vendors and contractors were concerned about employee safety. Whether on the manufacturing floor or in the field, evaluations had to be made to determine whether to keep working or suspend operations until they could understand how the virus might impact them.
That's on the repack side of things. Then theres the rest of the broadcast business already working and operating. The broadcasters that have nothing to do with repack rely on many of those same resources to help them every day, whether it's normal maintenance, or an emergency. Some of these broadcast resources have long-term relationships with these broadcasters and theyre doing their best to squeeze them into the already difficult workload.
All of the above doesn't even consider the weather. During the 2018-2019 winter, we had problems-we had either incredible rain or wind events that stopped construction completely or increased the work schedule by weeks. That, of course, had a domino effect on other project schedules into spring and summer.
All of those realistic real world things happen, repack or not-they h
