APTS SEEKS BROADBAND CLASSIFICATION FOR PTV DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY
Saying PTV’s “broadband-like” DTV services can provide high-speed access to rural areas, and homeland security, public broadcasters are making push for regulatory classification of PTV stations’ proposed high-speed educational services using DTV technology as broadband service. APTS Vp-Policy Marilyn Mohrman-Gillis said APTS hoped PTV would be included in any “funding opportunities” that might emerge in legislation to spur broadband deployment. In comments filed with NTIA, APTS urged agency to recognize distinction between advanced services and high- speed services within definition of broadband and to include one-way delivery of high-speed services using digital technology in definition.
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To help remove obstacles to broadband deployment, NTIA has started proceeding soliciting comments on: (1) How broadband services should be defined. (2) What criteria should be used to determine whether facility or services had sufficient transmission capacity to be classified as broadband. (3) Policy implications of how term was defined. Besides being “correct” classification, “we are asking NTIA, FCC and the Hill not to miss this opportunity for delivery of broadband services, especially in rural and underserved areas” where DSL and cable can’t reach, Mohrman-Gillis said.
PTV stations are seeking to “maximize” ability to offer high-speed “broadband-like” educational services to underserved areas through “asymmetric” network that uses high-speed data delivery capability of DTV for downstream services and leverages existing network infrastructure such as telephone dial-up access for return path, APTS said. Although FCC had noted that because DTV signals by themselves weren’t 2-way or “switched,” they didn’t constitute broadband services, agency “recognized that if 2 separate one-way technologies capable of delivering data rates at 200 kbps or greater to the last mile were used in concert, the result would be a broadband service,” APTS said. FCC also recognized that concept of broadband would have to evolve as technology evolved, it said.
FCC had said it was necessary to divide broadband services into 2 narrow subcategories -- advanced services and high-speed services -- because term had become “so common and imprecise,” APTS said, and it supported distinction. Advanced services refer to 2-way data delivery capable of rates of 200 kbps or greater in both directions and high- speed to services that deliver 200 kbps in at least one direction.
APTS said PTV stations had “dedicated” portion of digital bandwidth to “providing access to all Americans to educational services.” It said in exchange for federal support for digital buildout, PTV stations would commit 4.5 Mbps of DTV (25% of digital channel capacity) to deliver formal education services. Fully DTV-converted PTV system could provide digital, video and data services over air to 99% of population, it said, and could reach more people than current “last-mile” services such as cable modem and DSL. Many PTV stations, including N.J. Network and KCPT Kansas City, Mo., already are deploying asymmetric networks, APTS said, and neither NTIA nor FCC should “unnecessarily constrain” definition of broadband in ways that could delay deployment of those services.
APTS said Ky. Educational TV (KET) partnered with National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration to develop new application of digital broadcast technology that could provide timely and up-to-date public service information to communities in state. By using software already available, KET can send emergency storm alerts, weather information, criminal profiles and other time-sensitive material instantaneously to computers around state, it said. Aside from decreasing alert time and information lags, use of digital broadcast infrastructure can bypass congestion of wireline and cellular networks experienced on Sept. 11, APTS said. Spokeswoman said APTS would hold demonstration of KET system in Washington during its Capitol Hill Day in Washington Feb. 25-27.