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

At 10:26 AM -0700 9/27/05, John Willkie wrote:
>Did the FCC issue this NPRM by it's own motion, or did it do it in response
>to a petitiion for rulemaking?  What person or organization filed that
>initial petition for rulemaking?

There has been a great deal of noise, and little light in this 
thread. Perhaps some real facts are in order.

John is correct. The NAB petitioned the FCC to begin the Advanced 
Television Process in 1987.

The background is well established. The land mobile industry was 
putting pressure on the FCC to make more spectrum available for 
mobile telecommunications in the early '80s, and they set their 
sights squarely on the spectrum that was, and still is, being 
squandered by television broadcasters. This is all about the fact 
that vast amounts of the spectrum assigned to television broadcasters 
are under-utilized because of the possibility of market-into-market 
interference, due to the use of Big Sticks and high power levels. The 
result was, and still is, that in most markets more than half of the 
available RF channels are NOT used by the broadcasters, to protect 
the channels they ARE using from interference.

By the mid '80s the FCC began to circulate the idea that the land 
mobile industry could share some of this spectrum, using channels 
that were not in use in major markets, at lower power levels, which 
in principle would not cause interference with NTSC broadcasts on 
adjacent channels.

The FCC was pulling it's hair out, trying to figure out a way to 
control all of the spectrum assigned to television broadcasters. As 
John points out (and Joel Brinkley does in his book), John Able is 
credited with the idea that the NAB should petition the FCC to 
suspend any re-assignment of the frequencies assigned to television 
broadcasters, while it was determined if more spectrum would be 
needed to deliver HDTV to the viewing public.

History will also note that Joseph Flaherty, with CBS, spearheaded 
the movement in the U.S. to introduce HDTV. By 1985 Flaherty had 
managed to conduct demonstrations of the Japanese HDTV system for 
Congress; Japan was moving forward with a system for the satellite 
delivery of HDTV using an analog system called MUSE. The MUSE system 
required 12 MHz of spectrum per channel - It was not an augmentation 
system, per se', but the principles could easily be applied to 
augment an existing 6 MHz SDTV signal with the additional HDTV detail.

Able latched onto this idea and the NAB petitioned to the FCC, asking 
that a proceeding be opened  to determine if broadcasters should be 
allocated a second 6 MHz channel to deliver an augmentation signal 
which would be combined with the NTSC "base-layer" to deliver HDTV. 
The FCC responded by creating the Advisory Committee On Advanced 
television services, under the auspices of former FCC Chairman 
Richard Wiley.

At this point I will turn to a paper written by Joseph Flaherty, 
which covers the period between 1987 and 1992, when I became a 
participant in the ACATS and ATSC processes. This paper was published 
by the EBU in 1994.

The paper can be downloaded here: 
www.ebu.ch/departments/technical/trev/trev_260-flaherty.pdf

When the Federal Communications Committee
(FCC) sought private sector advice and formed the
Advisory Committee on Advanced Television Service
(ACATS) in 1987, under the chairmanship of
Richard E. Wiley, to make a recommendation to
the FCC for a single terrestrial HDTV transmission
standard, it was planned that the recommendation
would be made in time for the FCC to set the
standard in the second quarter of 1993.

By 1989, there were eight advanced television
(ATV) proponents, and thirteen analogue system
proposals were being presented to the Advisory
Committee.

By 1990, the FCC Advisory Committee had outlined
a comprehensive plan for laboratory and
over-the-air testing of all the ATV systems. An
open, fair and objective decision-making process
had been put in place, and the FCC schedule
seemed achievable.

The number of ATV proposals peaked at twenty-
one, but by 1990 they had shrunk to only nine. Two
of these were HDTV simulcast systems and they
were both analogue designs.

In 1990, the major change took place. On 1st June
of that year, General Instruments proposed an all-
digital HDTV system, just four weeks before the
system submission deadline. Television was to
change for ever. The digital era had begun and analogue
broadcasting was doomed.

By 1991, only five HDTV systems remained and,
of these, only one was a hybrid analogue/digital
system - the Narrow MUSE system proposed by
the Nippon Hoso Kyokai (NHK). The other four
were all-digital systems and the change-over to
digital systems had extended the Advisory Committee
schedule by about six months.

[Two paragraphs about the testing procedures deleted]

Thus the task of the technical community, to devise
a practical terrestrial HDTV broadcasting system
that would give television broadcasters an HDTV
option and a gateway into the digital era, was well
under way and nearly on schedule.

Meanwhile, the FCC was forming its policy on
Advanced Television and HDTV. In April 1990,
FCC Chairman Sikes had announced:
...the Commission's intent is to select a simulcast
high definition television standard that is compatible
with the current 6 MHz channelization plan
but employing new design principles independent
of NTSC technology. We do not envision ... that the
Commission would adopt an enhanced definition
standard, if at all, prior to reaching a final decision
on an HDTV standard, which ... will be made in the
second quarter of 1993.

In September of 1990, in its First Report and Order,
the FCC decided:
We do not find it useful to give further consideration
to systems that use additional spectrum to
"augment" an existing 6-MHz television channel
to provide NTSC compatible service.

Consistent with our goal of ensuring excellence in
the ATV service, we intend to select a simulcast
high definition television system.

A simulcast system also will be spectrum efficient
and facilitate the implementation of the advanced
television service. Such a system will transmit the
increased information of an HDTV signal in the
same 6-MHz channel space used in the current
television channel plan.

By 1990, therefore, the FCC and the private-sector
Advisory Committee had abandoned "enhanced"
and "augmentation" systems from further consideration.
They had focused further work on incompatible
HDTV simulcast systems, frozen the
broadcasting spectrum for three more years of testing,
and ensured that complete and objective tests
would be made on all proponent systems before the
approval of any HDTV system.

Thus, America would adopt an incompatible simulcast,
full HDTV, terrestrial service.

Thus, three years after the FCC petitioned the FCC to investigate the 
allocation of an additional 6 MHz of spectrum for every broadcaster 
to deliver HDTV, the process was transformed into an effort to 
develop a 6 MHz HDTV system which would be simulcast alongside NTSC 
during a yet to be defined simulcast period.

Mark Schubin wrote:
>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.


While Mark is technically correct that the FCC did not order a 
digital television system until 1995, in reality the date when the 
process became digital was June 1, 1990, when GI announced that they 
would develop a 6 MHz, non compatible HDTV broadcast system. The 
First Report and Order on Advanced Television essentially confirmed 
that the new system would be digital, as it directed the proponents 
to develop a 6 MHz simulcast system. As Flaherty points out, four of 
the five proponent systems that were tested were digital, and the 
fifth, the partially analog MUSE system was not competitive in terms 
of tested quality.

What Flaherty does not mention is that before Reed Hundt became 
Chairman of the FCC in 1993, after the election of Bill Clinton, Al 
Sikes directed the Advisory committee to evaluate all of the 
proponent systems based on their interoperability, extensibility and 
scalability. This request came after Apple and MIT convinced Sikes 
that this new digital television standard should be compatible with 
the technology being developed by the IT/Computer industry. This led 
to the formation of Working Party Four, within ACATS, a process in 
which I was a participant. The WP4 report stated that an all digital 
system was highly desirable in terms of interoperability; This pretty 
much "stuck the fork" in the Japanese Muse system was for all intents 
and purposes cooked.

The next phase of the process was the formation of the infamous Grand 
Alliance, and three more years of system development and testing.

It is now September of 2005, 18 years after the Advanced Television 
process began. To date only a few channels have been reassigned, as a 
handful of broadcasters have voluntarily chosen to end their analog 
broadcasts, allowing Qualcomm to clear the spectrum they bought at 
auction for MediaFlo.

This has always been a battle to control spectrum, with HDTV serving 
as the Trojan Horse to keep things tied up. It is ironic that today 
the major demand of broadcasters if for multicast must carry, so they 
can deliver more SDTV programming.

You've got'ta love the dysfunctional world inside the beltway...

Regards
Craig
 
 
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