[opendtv] Re: Questions about DTT Transition and Channels 60-69

by way of interlineation ...

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mark Schubin" <tvmark@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, September 26, 2005 6:15 AM
Subject: [opendtv] Re: Questions about DTT Transition and Channels 60-69


> John Willkie wrote:
>
> >wasn't the transition started (John Abel, etc) to deal with the incursion
of
> >public safety on broadcast bands?  I can provide cites if needed,
including
> >the (I believe) still pending LA Sheriff's petition.)
> >
> >
> In a word, no.
>
> If you want to dig into broadcasters' reasons for pushing HDTV, you will
> find the CBS filing of July 1981 most instructive.  They asked the FCC
> to preven DBS from using Ku-band to preserve those frequencies for HDTV.
>

I read the filing two days after it was submitted, in the public reference
room.  It was a laugher, as Comsat (one of the proponents) pointed out in
much technical detail in their response.  I thought at the time that it was
a wild-assed stab in the dark.  Also, I note that DBS using Ku and Ka band
became a fact of life in short order after the CBS filing.  So, it was
ignored -- and rightly so, despite Commissioner Stephen Sharp taking CBS's
petition as gospel.  (When incumbents want to deny competition, can't say
"we don't want competition" because it's unavailing to the purpose of the
FCC, so they badly use technical or other arguments.

> But, if you want to follow the FCC work, it began officially in 1987 as
> a means to deliver HDTV, thought to be analog, which would not have
> freed any spectrum.  The fourth report & order, in 1995, finally
> acknowledges a move to digital.
>

I'd take it back a few years before, and I was (almost) resident in the FCC
building at the time, and I know that you were not at the same time, Mark.
In 1984, Alex Felker, then assistant Mass Media Burea Chief, was pissed off
because the higher-ups decided that his immodest "Proposal for a Deregulated
Radio Service) wasn't issued as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, but as a
technical report from the Office of Chief Engineer.  (Many people at the
commission thought that it shouldn't have been given even that status.)

The end result of this far-thinking proposal was that frequencies could be
assigned as a set of coordinates, a radius, and a number of hertz.

This proposal scared the holy s**t out of broadcasters, who thought it could
mean that their frequencies could be chopped up.  This affect only sparked
Alex Felker's interest, but he soon left the Mass Media bureau, but he did
up as an assistant to the ACATS chairman.

This WAS the stimulus for the NAB.  I had extensive talks with NAB types and
their attorneys and paralegals at the time.

> "With this Fourth Further Notice of Proposed Rule Making and Third
> Notice of Inquiry ("Notice"), we continue the process of moving toward
> the next era of broadcast television: digital broadcast television. In
> previous orders in this Advanced Television ('ATV') proceeding, our
> focus was on fostering the development of High Definition Television
> ('HDTV')."
> http://www.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Mass_Media/Notices/1995/fcc95315.txt
>

This is new news I was talking about the reason for the ACATS process in the
first place.

> Even in that fourth report, issues the year before the
> Telecommunications Act of 1996, there is no reference to public safety.
>

That's because the whole process supplanted -- at least for a time -- the
public service move to take over unused broadcast frequenies.  Public
Service/public safety (did you search both terms?) were given a separate
track in 1986-1987.  Of course, everything came back to public service in
the loop when the threat of auctions loomed.

I note a bait and switch on your part in this thread.  My views were formed
contemporaneously, while I lived in Washington DC and dealt with the FCC on
an intimate basis.  Did I mention I attended the first two ACATS meetings?

John Willkie
> TTFN,
> Mark
>
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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.
>

 
 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
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.

Other related posts: