Chairman confirms upcoming effort to re-purpose TV spectrum for mobile broadband
For several months now the question on many TV broadcasters’ minds has been: will they or won’t they take away my spectrum and turn it over to smartphones? And while various FCC higher-ups have dropped conflicting hints about what the answer might be, the fact is that no one has expected to know for sure until the release (currently set for March 16) of the FCC’s National Broadband Plan (NBP). But late this month Chairman Genachowski tipped the Commission’s hand, albeit without adding much practical detail.
The FCC’s answer appears to be: TV spectrum is not being used efficiently, and would be better allocated to mobile broadband use, so the FCC plans to devise some mechanism to encourage TV licensees to cough up some or all of their spectrum in return for the prospect of taking home some portion of the proceeds when their spectrum is auctioned off for broadband.
According to the Chairman, the NBP will call for the “freeing up” of 500 MHz of spectrum over the next decade. And one way the FCC hopes to achieve that, at least in part, will involve “establish[ing] market-based mechanisms that enable spectrum intended for the commercial marketplace to flow to the uses the market values most.”
Can you spell “a-u-c-t-i-o-n”?
Sure enough, that fin de siècle panacea is going to be the go-to device again in the 21st Century. As described by the Chairman, the NBP will propose a “Mobile Future Auction” – unclear whether the “mobile” there modifies “future” or “auction” – which will “permit[ ] existing spectrum licensees, such as television broadcasters in spectrum-starved markets, to voluntarily relinquish spectrum in exchange for a share of auction proceeds”.
Precisely how such an auction would work has yet to be disclosed – indeed, it may not even have been determined yet. But it is apparent that the Commission has thoroughly embraced the notion that television spectrum is a resource that can and should be re-purposed for mobile broadband use. While Genachowski’s speech shed no light on the anticipated auction mechanism, it did offer something in the nature of a rationale as to why TV spectrum is being singled out.
For openers, there is a “massive amount of unlocked value” in TV spectrum – maybe even $50 billion, according to “one study” – and from this, the Commission has ineluctably concluded that there are “inefficiencies in the current allocation”. Who says there’s $50B, give or take, in “unlocked value” there? Why, “a broad range of analysts, companies and trade associations participating” in the FCC’s nearly infinite range of broadband-related inquiries. Which analysts, companies and associations? Well, the Chairman didn’t say. How might the inherent “value” get “unlocked” (and how did it get “locked” in the first place)? That’s another explanation which is left for a later day.
Another reason for grabbing TV spectrum: according to the Chairman, TV “spectrum is not being used efficiently – indeed, much is not being used at all”. In support of this claim Genachowski cited some vague and general claims along the lines of “Even in our very largest cities, at most only about 150 megahertz out of 300 megahertz [of TV spectrum] are used.”
While a speech is probably not the forum in which to lay all one’s cards out on the table, the Chairman might still have offered just a tad more support for the decision to go after TV spectrum. After all, estimates of “unlocked value” are not really something you can take to the bank, particularly if those estimates were propounded by folks who might be in a position to rake in some of that “unlocked value” if things go the right way. And it’s difficult to credit claims of efficiency of spectrum use when the TV industry, and the viewing public, are less than nine months into the DTV era. Certainly there may be substantial spectrum potential yet to be tapped, but why must we assume that the best (maybe even the only) way to tap it is through mobile broadband services to be provided by somebody other than broadcasters? (In fact, FHH has a client who has a technology that will allow TV stations to use any digital bits they don’t need for television programming to provide broadband – something they can do today under present rules and so can do a lot faster than navigating through the political reallocation and auction thickets.)
Perhaps recognizing that his rationale was not all that compelling, Genachowski shifted gears into huckster mode: “the Mobile Future Auction is a win-win proposal: for broadcasters, who win more flexibility to pursue business models to serve their local communities; and for the public, which wins more innovation in mobile broadband services, continued free, over-the-air television, and the benefits of the proceeds of new and substantial auction revenues.” Often when you hear the term “win-win”, it’s a safe bet that somebody’s trying to sell you something that you might neither want nor need. In this case, for example, we don’t know what “flexibility” broadcasters might gain that they don’t have now.
The Chairman did emphasize that the “Mobile Future Auction” is currently envisioned as a voluntary program. Voluntary? Perhaps, but maybe only in the same way that a businessman “voluntarily” decides to buy insurance from the guy who says “nice little business you got here – it’d be a shame if something happened to it.”
In any event, while we may not know all the details, we at least know the direction in which the Commission’s heading. Ideally more details will be available on March 16, the day on which the NBP is currently set to be revealed. But even that will mark, at most, the starting point of what is likely to be a difficult struggle.
Interestingly, it’s not at all clear what difference (if any) the FCC’s views will make. The statute requiring the NBP doesn’t say who is in charge of adopting it, or whether it even needs to be adopted by the Commissioners as the formal recommendation of the agency to Congress. The law simply directs the FCC to do its due diligence to come up with a plan, then tell Congress about it. Other than that, the FCC appears to have no independent authority to jumpstart or otherwise implement the NBP; the only entity explicitly granted authority by Congress to adopt regulations related to the broadband initiative is the Assistant Secretary of Commerce in charge of NTIA, not the FCC. Moreover, the FCC’s statutory auction authority doesn’t say anything about turning over any proceeds to incumbent licensees or anyone else but the U.S. Treasury.
Given the uncertainty about the follow-through, we are cautiously advising broadcasters to view the NBP as the FCC’s recommendation to Congress, and not a final decree. It is also appropriate to bear in mind that the folks in Congress may be reluctant to turn their backs on broadcasters, particularly if broadcasters increase the intensity of use of their spectrum by introducing more multi-channel broadcast or non-broadcast services. Notwithstanding social media and Internet advertising campaigns, etc., candidates continue to flock to broadcasters at election time to reach for voters. And broadcasters’ ability to deliver voters’ eyes and ears may constitute an “unlocked value” of its own.
We will, of course, have to wait and see.
