Pressure Against White Spaces Builds With Cable Lobbying
Pressure against unlicensed portable broadband devices gained with stepped-up lobbying this week by cable operators against white space devices. The NCTA for the first time Tuesday began lobbying commissioners’ offices to make the case that power levels for proposed devices are too high, said officials. It fears white-space transmissions could hinder reception of cable channels by interfering with TV sets, VCRs and other gear that lets subscribers get pay TV, said Vice President and Associate General Counsel Loretta Polk. Cox Communications also made the eighth-floor rounds this week.
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NCTA officials said the group met Tuesday with aides to Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein and Wednesday with staffers of Robert McDowell and Michael Copps. Cable officials also met with Office of Engineering and Technology Chief Julius Knapp. In March, an OET study showed that two devices caused interference to digital TV broadcasts. The NCTA expects to file an ex parte with the commission on the meetings Thursday, said a spokesman. During the meetings, cable officials also expressed fears the devices could interfere with reception of broadcast TV signals at cable headends located beyond stations’ Grade B contours. Although the group flagged its concerns to the FCC in an Aug. 15 filing, the recent eighth-floor visits are meant to increase the visibility of the worries, NCTA officials said.
“We had kind of gotten a little lost in all of the discussion about broadcaster interference,” Polk said in an interview. “The hazards to cable viewing are unique and we wanted to make sure that the commission was fully aware of our concerns.” The group plans to meet with other commissioners and their staff the next few weeks, Polk said, calling this week’s eighth-floor meetings “very productive.” OET “clearly understands what our concerns are,” she added. “We are just beginning to make the rounds” at the FCC.
Cable’s position on the devices hasn’t changed. The industry is just bolstering lobbying. Cable officials stressed that they don’t object to white space devices altogether -- they're just concerned about power levels. White spaces devices can operate at as high as 100 mW, many times the level at which OET tests found interference can occur to cable TV sets, said Polk. “We're not opposed to the idea of white space devices and generally support the concept,” she added. “We're just concerned that the technical parameters be that these devices not interfere with in-home viewing of cable channels.”
The FCC should protect cable headends from interference by portable devices, said Polk. NCTA’s August FCC filing urged the regulator to restrict operation of portable devices within TV station’s Grade B contours, which generally are at the edge of broadcasters’ coverage area. On Monday, Cox officials discussed that concern with aides to Adelstein, Copps and FCC Chairman Kevin Martin. “Cox stressed that there remain too many unanswered technical questions to permit personal and portable devices,” said an ex parte of the meetings. “Significant additional testing and analysis related to both broadcast television and cable services is required.”
The devices will protect cable customers and TV viewers from interference, engineer Ed Thomas, representing the White Spaces Coalition, told a Federal Communications Bar Association lunch Wednesday. Cable headends will be protected from interference because the antennas usually are several hundred feet high. That’s tall enough to avoid getting signals from devices at ground level, he said. “All the rhetoric of fear is based on fear, but not science.” He asked other participants on the panel, whose exchanges often became testy, to “tone down the rhetoric.”
Stepped-up lobbying by cable may help convince commissioners that portable white space devices are a bad idea, broadcast attorneys said. The NAB touted cable’s lobbying efforts. “It’s no secret that NAB does not always share the public policy goals of our friends in the cable industry, but on this issue, we stand united in our concern for preserving interference-free television,” said a spokesman. “This speaks to the very real and very dangerous implications of allowing interference from portable unlicensed devices into the DTV band.”
The FCC lacks the personnel to enforce interference rules against unlicensed devices, Association for Maximum Service TV President David Donovan told the panel. “They most certainly don’t have the ability to recall devices once they're issued to consumers,” he said. Lawyer Catherine Wang said wireless microphone manufacturers, her clients, are concerned about interference as well. Operations of professional sports leagues, musicians, Broadway and Las Vegas shows and other entertainers could be devastated by interference to their mics, she said. “These white spaces are not white at all,” Wang said. “We have many things living in there… Every city’s tourism revenue will depend on this if they have any performing artists.” But Free Press Policy Director Ben Scott said consumers will win if the FCC permits portable devices because they will bring the price of broadband down. “It’s unacceptable to say this can’t be done,” he said, calling portable devices broadband “on steroids.”
Thomas played down doomsday scenarios and said the FCC can quickly do more tests to show that the devices work. His group includes Dell, Google and Intel. The FCC likely will quickly start a second round of testing, he predicted. The extensive field studies that broadcasters want will take time, Donovan said. “I'm not so sure thorough testing is consistent with the idea of rushing it through.”