DTV Transition & Media Reform

Remember how the Internet community stopped SOPA?

Come on out to Irish Whiskey this Thursday at 8pm for the official launch of the Internet Defense League (IDL), a network of people and organizations committed to defending the open Internet. The goal of IDL is to sound the alarm quickly to millions of users whenever the Internet is in peril.

(Welcome to visitors from Bill Moyers' site. If you want to help collect public files please email me at glaisyer@newamerica.net.)

“Community radio is 10% radio and 90% community,” Jeff Shaw says. Speaking at a workshop about bringing together the worlds of low-power FM (LPFM) radio and public access television, Shaw drew this key lesson from his long career as a community media provider. The quote, he added, was inspired by community radio advocate Zane Ibrahim, founder of Bush Radio in Cape Town, South Africa. “It’s not necessarily the tools that are used--it’s about engaging with the community,” Shaw said.

The importance of community engagement was also a major theme for others at the workshop, which was presented at last week’s Alliance for Community Media Conferencein Tucson, Ariz. Titled “Turn Up the Radio: Exploring Collaborative Opportunities for PEG and LPFM,”  it featured a variety of lessons for how LPFM advocates and Public, Educational, and Government (PEG) Access TV providers could benefit from working together more closely.

Media Access Project, the New America Foundation and Public Knowledge, on behalf of the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition (“PISC”), respectfully submit these comments in response to the Commission’s Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (the “FNPRM”) in the Revisions to Rules Authorizing the Operation of Low Power Auxiliary Stations in the 698-806 MHz Band; Public Interest Spectrum Coalition, Petition for Rulemaking Regarding Low Power Auxiliary Stations, Including Wireless Microphones, and the Digital Television Transition; Amendment of Parts 15, 74 and 90 of the Commission’s Rules Regard

It takes fewer airwaves to transmit a digital signal than it does an analog one, which means companies can use the reclaimed airwaves to enhance the way we communicate, said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at the New ...

The coalition "is very definitely still interested in avoiding any unjustified cannibalization of TV white space by broadcast licensees unless they can demonstrate they need to do this to continue coverage to households within their" market who could lose access to DTV signals after the analog cutoff, New America Foundation Vice President Michael Calabrese told us. "We reiterated those concerns to commissioners" Friday. LINK (subscription required)

In an October 2007 letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), executives from the four largest TV networks told the Commission that proposals to allow low-power Wi-Fi type devices to operate on vacant TV channels, “could cause permanent damage to over-the-air digital television reception." Such a dire warning would ring alarm bells for policymakers, if not for the fact that similar nightmare scenarios have been predicted before.

Google co-founder Larry Page was in Washington Thursday trying to strum up support to open unused broadcast TV spectrum to wireless devices. Page came to D.C. to meet with Congressional leaders and the Federal Communications Commission to talk about allowing device manufacturers to design products that use spectrum known as "white space." This spectrum, which is in the 700MHz band of frequency, sits between analog TV channels and is not being used for anything more than a buffer between broadcast TV channels.

...[T]he soft-spoken and baby-faced Page met with key lawmakers including House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and policy makers at the Federal Communications Commission to push an idea to use empty television broadcast spectrum, called white spaces, for high-speed wireless connections by anyone, anywhere in the U.S.

In an event hosted by New America Foundation, "... Page argued that opening up vacant TV spectrum after the February 2009 switch to digital TV will help to spread broadband as well as boost Google's bottom line, calling opening up the white spaces "the most important thing the FCC [Federal Communications Commission] can do this year to promote broadband deployment and tech-sector innovation..." LINK