Obama Administration Makes Freeing Up Spectrum Part Of Budget
Plan will focus on commercial broadband use or "dynamic" shared use
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/1/2010 3:21:31 PM
The new Obama administration budget makes clear that one of the reasons it wants to extend the FCC's authority to auction spectrum "indefinitely" is because it is expected to find new spectrum to sell to wireless broadband carriers.
The 2011 budget says the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and the FCC will collaborate on a 10-year "to make available significant spectrum suitable for both mobile and fixed wireless broadband use over the next 10 years.
The plan is expected to focus on commercial broadband use or "dynamic" shared use by private industry and the government.
The administration was already budgeting $1.6 billion in auction revenues by 2020 by extending the FCC's authority, but says it is looking to create value "beyond the $1.6 billion" from the spectrum the plan uncovers auctioning.
The FCC is already contemplating ways to get spectrum back from broadcasters to create some of that "extra value." Broadcasters don't argue that their spectrum is not valuable, only that it is not available, since it is being used for HDTV and muliticasting and mobile DTV.
The FCC's proposed 2011 budget is $352.5 million.
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Agreed. I saw a prior story to this. Today corperation for public broadcasting is expecting tax payers to pay up even more. $352 million is another lone. This congress wants to max out there 1 trillion dollar credit card. Congress passes a broadcaster bill, known important right now. Our future children will pay for a federal government mistake. Thanks to prior response..
RVOWNER - 2/2/2010 11:43:24 AM EST -
Here we go again!
When is the federal government going to stop making the local broadcasters pay for the FCC oversights?
If the government is going to take back some of the spectrum, just to make a buck, then they should have to pay for re-channeling costs incurred by the broadcasters. The FCC already has made the broadcasters pay for digital integration and re-channeling! Now do we need to pay for it again? The UHF band has shrunk from 83 channels to 49 while the low band VHF is no longer even available. I realize the broadcasters can now be combined as a secondary channel but do the cable carriers then have to carry them as a dot channel? As it states now the cable carriers do not and this means that the revenue lost by broadcasters will increase due to spectrum loss.
Bad news for a nation that is in dire straits.
Brian Schauer - 2/2/2010 11:16:12 AM EST
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