Broadcasters, DBS Providers Disagree on Antenna Standards for STELA
Direct broadcast satellite providers and broadcasters disagree about the antenna standard that the FCC should use in defining unserved households eligible to receive distant signals, they said in comments to the commission. The agency is following through on parts of the Satellite TV Localism and Extension Act (STELA), and both sides replied Tuesday to a rulemaking notice on the standard (CD July 29 p11) in docket 10-152. The proposed rule would continue to use the outdoor antenna standard, which classifies consumers who can’t receive broadcast signals by outdoor antenna as unserved and so eligible to get distant signals by DBS. STELA doesn’t specify the type of antenna to be used in the predictive model and on-site testing that determine distant signal eligibility. Under the law, the commission must act by Nov. 23 to implement the act.
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The FCC’s proposal to “base both predictive model and measurement method upon the unrealistic, outdated (and now unauthorized) assumption of a gigantic directional antenna towering over the consumer’s house” goes in spite of the Congressional intent of STELA, Dish Network and DirecTV said jointly. Consumers have increasingly moved to using indoor antennas because of technical improvements and the DTV transition, when the FCC endorsed using indoor antennas, they said.
Removing the specification of an “outdoor” antenna from previous legislation shows that Congress was responding to the DTV transition, which made indoor antenna reception more prevalent, the DBS companies said. The FCC should treat the removal of the specification as intentional, they said. The commission commonly treats deletions of legislative language as intentioned by Congress, including in a separate rulemaking on the implementation of STELA (CD Aug 19 p6), Dish and DirecTV said. They recommended basing the predictive model on an indoor half-wave dipole. The switch to DTV means that a household either gets a picture over-the-air or it doesn’t, they said. In developing indoor antenna testing standards, the agency should find that the absence of TV reception means a household is unserved, rather than the commission’s using a signal strength test to make the determination.
Using outdoor antennas won’t hurt DirecTV or Dish in decisions on whether their subscribers can receive terrestrially an in-market TV station or whether broadcasts of out-of-market affiliates of the same network can be imported by DBS providers, broadcast groups said. They said that because Dish offers local-into-local service in all 210 TV markets -- a requirement in STELA for the company to get out from under an injunction banning its importation of distant signals -- the provider can import them only in markets that don’t have affiliates of all the major networks. DirecTV committed in congressional testimony to follow the digital individual location Longley Rice model that uses outdoor antennas, the NAB, Association for Maximum Service Television and Big Four affiliate groups said jointly.
"It would be ironic indeed to establish a standard for service by broadcast stations in which households are expected to use outdoor antennas to receive satellite signals and indoor antennas to receive broadcast signals,” the six groups said. “If signal intensity tests were taken indoors, households would have the incentive to manipulate the results by directing the tester to a TV in the location with the worst possible reception -- such as in a basement. For all these reasons, it would be impractical either to develop an accurate predictive model of indoor signal strength or to do testing indoors.” In STELA, Congress envisioned continuing reliance on outdoor antennas in the Longley Rice model, and the FCC is right to use it, the broadcasters said. “Although one part of the statute now refers only to an ‘antenna,’ two other provisions of the statute make clear that Congress intended the Commission to assume use of an outdoor antenna."
A broadcasting engineering firm asked the FCC to develop software to carry out the legislation, and to keep in mind that some DBS subscribers who can’t now get a nearby station because of changes from the DTV transition may be able to receive it in the future. “How will STELA be administered to those viewers who opted at one juncture to choose satellite service due to lack of perceived off-the-air service who may later receive predicted off-the-air service due to the actions in the National Broadband Plan” for reallocating 120 MHz of TV spectrum, said the firm, Cohen Dippel. That raises the “prospect of a larger DTV service area,” it said. For the “many stations” still going through the digital transition, it said, “a lack-of-service determination under STELA may be rendered moot at a later date by an upgrade in television facilities and improved” terrestrial reception.