FCC s Lake: 04 Auctions Aggreive But Doable

Federal Communications Commission Media Bureau Chief William Lake

WASHINGTON William Lake, chief of the FCC's Media Bureau, told broadcasters last week that although he is encouraged with progress on creating new broadcast standards, the FCC is moving forward regardless with its planned spectrum auctions in 2014.

We've set a goal of adopting rules this year in holding the auctions in 2014 in order to meet a shortage [of] spectrum for wireless broadband that may appear as early as 2015, Lake said. We're in full swing on that project and we think that those target dates are aggressive but doable.

Lake made his comments at the annual meeting of the Advanced Television Systems Committee in Washington D.C., where some of television's best and brightest engineering minds assembled to discuss the next frontiers in U.S. broadcast television. While mobile DTV and delivery of video to the second screen, were on the agenda, the lion's share of attention centered on the proposed ATSC 3.0 television system, which is targeted at increasing transmission flexibility and efficiency, and integrating with other video delivery technologies. ATSC 3.0 topic surfaced early in the daylong meeting as part of Lake's keynote address.

ATSC, since its founding, has been a mechanism of innovation in the broadcast industry and it's gratifying to see how much it has done in recent years, Lake said. In particular, I'm excited to see ATSC's activity looking toward development of a new technical standard, ATSC 3.0.

To compete effectively in offering mobility and interactivity it seems likely that broadcasters will need a new technical standard. The added capabilities of ATSC 2.0 are a down payment, but the potential benefits of an ATSC 3.0 promise to be far greater. And as for 4k displays like the one shown here, broadcasters will want to be in the game with a way to deliver 4k video over the air.

[The FCC's] formal role will be to consider a rulemaking to bless any new standards that may be brought to us as we did with the original ATSC standard, but in the meantime, please think about what we might do to facilitate interactivity in this area.

ROLLOUT AND REPACK AREN'T GOING TO WAIT

Lake, however, dashed hopes that rollout of the ATSC 3.0 standard might coincide with the Congressionally mandated TV spectrum auction and repacking of channels.

We've also heard it said that it would be ideal if the repacking that follows the auction could be done at the same time the industry implements a new technical standard, Lake said. I can see why synchronizing those two activities would have some appeal, but it's important to recognize that it almost certainly won't happen. By contrast, developing and implementing a new technical standard for broadcasting may be a multi-year affair, even with the pedal to the metal.'

There are good reasons why the industry should not want to dawdle in considering and developing a new standard, but it would be a mistake to think the process could be collapsed to coincide with the auction and replacing process under the Spectrum Act, Lake said. The move to coordinate with activities in other parts of the world through the Future of Broadcast Television organization, while commendable, may be another reason why implementation of a new standard, even if done as quickly as possible, will march to a different drummer than the incentive auction.

During a Q&A session following Lake's remarks, he was reminded that Congress had established a 10-year period for the next TV broadcasting transition, and was asked if wouldn't make sense to expand the auction timeline to allow alignment with the ATSC 3.0 deployment.

I think all of the current commissioners are committed to doing the auction as quickly as possible for two reasons, Lake said. One is that we do perceive a coming crunch for wireless broadband that's projected to start as early as 2015. The other is that we do think that continued uncertainty in the broadcasting industry about the auction and the repacking is harmful. That said, I do urge ATSC and the industry to work as fast as you can and want to on ATSC 3.0; it's just that I think it's unrealistic to expect that the incentive auction will slow down to wait.

ATSC 3.0 WORKING GROUP UPDATE

ATSC 3.0 came to the forefront later in the day, with Jim Kutzner, chair of the ATSC TG3 group tasked with developing the new standard, providing some background and comments.

We have said from the beginning that [ATSC 3.0] really must provide improvement and additional functionality that is really sufficient to launch a non-backward compatible system, Kutzner said. It really needs to be worth the effort and cost we're going to undertake.

He added: We do need an increased flexibility and efficiency, and we're going to do that by reconsideration of the physical layer. We're recognizing that there are new usage models with the viewers the new TVs are connectible to the Internet. Viewer personalization is going to be desired and will increase targeting of those viewers, and will certainly add value for both the viewers and broadcasters. [As] the video codecs and new content sources come along, they are going to further enhance the viewer experience and we need a system that's really going to meet those demands.

ATSC 3.0 WISHES, EXPECTATIONS AND PROPOSALS

Immediately following Kutzner's remarks, a five-member panel was convened by moderator Myra More, president of Digital Tech Consulting, to explore considerations in moving from one digital television platform to another, Participants included Bret Jenkins of Lin Media; Mark Aitken of Sinclair Broadcasting Group; Jim Goodman of Capitol Broadcasting; John McCoskey of PBS; and Erik Moreno of Fox T

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