The FCC should maximize the number of white...
The FCC should maximize the number of white space channels available for unlicensed use above channel 20 and maintain as many consecutive white space channels as possible as it repacks broadcasters after the incentive auction, said representatives of the Public…
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Interest Spectrum Coalition (PISC) and Wireless Internet Service Providers Association (WISPA) in a meeting Thursday with staff from the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau, according to an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1sMsD3F). Michael Calabrese, director of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project, and Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld attended the meeting on behalf of PISC, along with WISPA counsel Stephen Coran. In an upcoming FNPRM on the auction and secondary TV services, the commission should clarify that low-power TV channels that are being occupied using construction permits or “not currently providing a substantial broadcast service” should be available for at least temporary unlicensed use rather than their spectrum being allowed to lie “fallow,” PISC and WISPA said. The FNPRM should also seek comment on new reporting requirements for broadcast licensees that would require more “granular” data, such as periods when a given station isn’t operating. “Since broadcast licensees occupy the public spectrum at no cost, a requirement that they report changes in their operational status from time to time would present a trivial and appropriate obligation,” said the filing. PISC also proposed that the FCC should encourage more efficient spectrum use by requiring secondary broadcast licensees to “co-locate and share a single 6 MHz channel where that is feasible without reducing their broadcast service to the community,” the filing said. The FCC should test such a requirement in “at least the 30 largest” designated market areas, and seek further comment on the idea, PISC said.