WASHINGTON-NAB, in reply to comments regarding the FCC's TV white space (TVWS) device proposed rulemaking notice, told the commission that consistent with Part 15 rules and as a matter of law that harmful interference from an unlicensed service must not be allowed to cause harmful interference to licensed users.
In the filing, the association said it and Microsoft had worked for several months to negotiate a set of beneficial adjustments to the FCC's existing rules that would allow improvement in TVWS service while protecting TV broadcasters from interference.
Unfortunately, some commenters seek to expand the scope of this proceeding into areas that have already been fully debated and where there have been no new developments that would warrant changes, said NAB in its comments.
The baseline for any adopted rule changes must be that they don't increase the risk of harmful interference, it reiterated.
The association urged the FCC to dismiss what it dubbed extraneous proposals, such as alternative propagation models, power increases and reduced frequency coordination requirements, because the agency cannot conclude they will not increase the potential for harmful interference, the filing said.
PLUS: Senators Push for FCC Action on White Spaces
In opposition to the assertion of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) and the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) that television service is overprotected based on free-space propagation models and worst-case assumptions about TV receiver performance, NAB told the FCC that contour protection is the only reasonable way to protect consumer TV receivers, which operate as hidden nodes.
NAB reminded the FCC that the contours used to protect TV service in an area are from the empirically derived R-6602 propagation curves as codified in the Commission's rules, not on free-space propagation.
Further, it told the FCC that TVWS protection requirements are relaxed when compared to the commission's other broadcast protection rules. It also disputed a WISPA assertion that ATSC 3.0 is more robust against interference, saying there is no basis for the statement.
The Commission should not change its protection methodology with respect to television receivers until a far more substantial technical record based on real world experience with ATSC 3.0 deployments is available, NAB said.
The association told the FCC that it should not permit increased transmitter power for TVWS devices. Doing so inevitably will lead to inadvertent or intentional overpower operation, it said.
NAB also told the commission that it should allow geo-fenced TVWS operation but that restrictions are warranted and that the protection distances for T-Band land-mobile radio protection should be increased.
The association recommended the FCC adopt Microsoft's proposed coordination requirement for TVWS operations where the height above average terrain (HAAT) exceeds 250 meters.
NAB continues to believe that the alternative notification process suggested in the NPRM will lead to interference that will be difficult to identify, it said. However, if the commission favors the notification process rather than Microsoft's proposed coordination procedures, the advanced notice should be longer than 48 hours.
NAB also urged the FCC to maintain rules for first-adjacent channel operation. Microsoft submitted test results it said supported allowing higher power on first-adjacent channels. NAB countered that those tests only used 2018-2019 model TV receivers, which provides no useable information whatsoever with respect to older receivers, NAB said.
Similarly, Microsoft used an ATSC 3.0 dongle costing about $1,000 and marketed as a professional grade receiver to test first-adjacent channels with respect to NextGen TV. The consumer ATSC 3.0 receiver market is plainly in a nascent stage, and without a wider base of tested receivers the Commission cannot draw any conclusions about the susceptibility of future 3.0 receivers to interference, it said.
NAB also asked the commission to reject adjustments to TVWS protections based on the use of directional antennas. While it agrees that directional antennas can reduce the potential for interference, there is absolutely no way of determining whether a directional antenna has been installed properly without the help of a licensed land surveyor, it said.
NAB concluded by urging the FCC to move forward in an expeditious manner with the proposals set forth in the NPRM that are uncontroversial and technically supported.
The NAB comments are available in full online.
North America Stories
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
11/06/2026
Laura Dern at the 1986 Sundance Institute Directors Lab (Photo by Eric Edwards)
By Lucy Spicer
It takes a village to bring together the Sundance Institute lab...
11/06/2026
MTI FILM acquires Mango/New Edit Posted by MTI Film on June 10, 2026
LOS ANGELES, CA - June 2026 - MTI FILM, the multiple Emmy Award winning Hollywood post-p...
11/06/2026
Study underscores the need for authoritative content intelligence to build trust...
WASHINGTON-NAB, in reply to comments regarding the FCC's TV white space (TVWS) device proposed rulemaking notice, told the commission that consistent with Part 15 rules and as a matter of law that harmful interference from an unlicensed service must not be allowed to cause harmful interference to licensed users.
