Levin: MPEG-4 Migration Should Be Spectrum Plan Broadcasters Can Get Behind

Broadcasters are willing to work with the FCC on a truly voluntary proposal

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 3/8/2011 5:40:00 PM

FCC National Broadband Plan architect Blair Levin is advising broadcasters to come up with a plan of their own for advancing their spectrum future--he suggests a move to the more spectrally efficient MPEG-4 transmission standard--rather than digging in their heels on the FCC's spectrum reclamtion/repacking proposal.

That advice will come in a Q&A between Levin and financial analysts at the Credit Suisse conference in Miami Tuesday, according to Levin, who previewed that point with B&C.

Levin, now with the Aspen Institute, plans to tell the analysts that broadcasters "seem focused on their fear of incentive auctions, which is odd as most businesses would regard new options for monetizing an asset as a positive." Broadcasters have said they are willing to work with the FCC on a truly voluntary proposal. But they are increasingly arguing that the FCC's plan to move broadcasters who don't give up spectrum into what they see as more cramped and less efficient spectrum quarters in the VHF band doesn't sound like voluntary to them."

Levin suggests broadcasters should be looking toward a more efficient transmission standard that could be a win-win for them and the government goal of freeing up spectrum. "They seem to be ignoring a critical question for their survival a decade from now: What is their future if they don't have a path to evolve to MPEG 4?" he told B&C.

"And since MPEG 4 creates greater spectrum efficiency, why are they not proposing an evolutionary path that solves their business problem at the same time that it solves the government's concern for more spectrum in the market?'

"Instead of just thinking in the negative, which is how to stop something, they should be thinking in the positive, which is how to create something," he says. The current M-PEG-2 standard does not accommodate 3-D. "If 3D really takes off, and it is really great for sports, what does that do for the broadcast model if you don't have MPEG-4."

Levin says that, since MPEG-4 is much more spectrally efficient, "what should happen is, broadcasters should come in and say: "Look, you guys want more spectrum, we need a path to evolve to MPEG-4, let's bring these two rivers together through the MPEG-4 evolution," he says. "If I were the broadcasters, instead of standing there and saying 'no' I would say, 'Hey, this is actually an opportunity.'

Levin says the new standard would "massively" increase spectrum efficiency, from 19.4 to 30 or 40 million bits per second, which is one of the reasons 3D would be possible.

Levin said he wasn't saying he knew more about the broadcast industry than broadcasters, but that, as he looked at the business perspective and policy perspective, "there is a very nice confluence, but I see no activity by the broadcasters that recognize the value of that confluence."

The FCC's National Broadband Plan, which Levin oversaw, proposed freeing up 120 mHz of spectrum from broadcasters' allocation to auction for wireless broadband, which the Obama administration has also been pushing as part of a national wireless initiative to make 4G service available to 98% of Americans withing five years.

"There have been discussions about [the move to MPEG-4] said National Association of Broadcasters spokesman Dennis Wharton, "but it would require swapping out every receiving device [as in TV set]. "That would be a daunting challenge for both broadcasters and our viewers," he said, pointing out that they just went through the transition to DTV, and new digital and HDTV sets, less than two years ago.