Craig Birkmaier wrote: > Perhaps the best solution is to let the telcos build out the > infrastructure and let existing broadcasters provide free ad > supported streams. Instead of paying broadcasters to vacate > the spectrum, why not allow the telcos to build the "spectrum > utility," share it with the broadcasters, and give the politicians > a percentage of the revenues generated instead of a lump sum up > front? Of course that's possible. All you are proposing is a cellco equivalent of disbanding FOTA TV and having everyone subscribe to cable or DBS. You can expect your cellco bill to go way up for that sort of service, compared to what you are paying now. And also, you can expect the broadcasters to demand a piece of those cellco subscription fees too. > It's not way wrong Bert. It is underutilized, and the content > oligopoly no longer sees a future there. For the time being, the content oligopoly is relatively comfortable with distributing their content over the FOTA broadcast networks, ad supported mainly, but not so comfortable with FOTI. Therefore, equally not so comfortable with free over the wireless cellular Internet. You just won't see all the content, and the content you do see is often gone next month. So how exactly do you define "underutilized"? I'm getting FOTA TV now. With what you propose, I would instead be generating a healthy infinite revenue stream to a company having to deploy a higher-cost, faster cellular infrastructure than they would need without the TV content. And the content oligopoly will no doubt demand a piece of that, as they do from MVPDs. Hmmm. So, now you are asking the FCC to become an agent of the cell companies, that need more money and a more complicated infrastructure to do what broadcasters are already doing, and for the content oligopoly? I'll say this, though. Your ideas might not fall on deaf ears with THIS particular FCC. That's because they are hell-bent on the one goal of increasing wireless access to the Internet. Whether or not it is put to the most efficient use. Bert ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.