Initial deadline: April 5, 2011
If you’re a TV licensee providing over-the-air feeds to one or more distant translator/LPTV/Class A stations, cable head-ends or satellite local receive sites, heads up. You need to act soon if you want reception of your signal at those sites to be protected from unlicensed devices operating in the TV band. April 5, 2011 is the deadline for TV stations with receive sites more than 80 kilometers beyond their protected contour to seek a waiver of the Commission’s geographic limitation to be able to register such receive locations. Note: this is a one-time-only opportunity.
Back in 2008, when the Commission adopted rules to govern the operation of unlicensed devices in the so-called “TV white spaces”, it sought to protect existing TV operations by establishing a database in which certain locations requiring protection could be registered. While receive locations that happen to be within a TV station’s protected service area were already routinely protected, that wasn’t the case for receive sites serving distant TV translator/LPTV/Class A TV stations, satellite or cable (MVPD) services, all of which deliver the signal to viewers outside the originating station’s protected contour. The Commission decided to protect, within reasonable bounds, the ability of such stations and services to receive programming over-the-air for retransmission. “Within reasonable bounds” in this context meant within 80 kilometers of the originating TV station’s protected contour. Translator/LPTV/Class A stations and MVPD services with receive sites so located were thus allowed to register their sites in the TV bands device database.
On reconsideration, though, the FCC determined that some MVPD services and translator/LPTV/Class A stations relying on over-the-air reception to obtain and redistribute TV signals are located more than 80 kilometers from the originating TV station’s protected service contour. In order to avoid disruption in those circumstances, the Commission opted to expand the notion of “within reasonable bounds” temporarily: it provided a 90-day opportunity (commencing with the effective date of the rules) for MVPD’s, TV translator, LPTV and Class A TV stations to request a rule waiver to allow them to register their receive locations in the TV bands devices database. This opportunity is available only for locations at which the TV programming is received over-the-air more than 80 kilometers from the originating station’s protected contour.
The initial 90-day waiver request filing period will expire on April 5, 2011. (Facilities that meet the geographic standards but don’t get licensed until later will have 90 days, starting with commencement of operation, to file for a waiver.)
Waiver requests should demonstrate how the operation of an unlicensed device near the relevant receive site would act to disrupt current patterns of television viewing. After a waiver request is received, the FCC will put it out for public comment and then will make a determination as to whether it will be granted.
The Commission has not yet provided any special instructions for the filing of such a waiver request. Check back here for updates on that score. But absent any such instructions, it would appear that filing through the Secretary’s office with a reference to ET Docket Nos. 02-380 and 04-186 should do the trick. Electronic filing in the dockets might also be a possibility – but, again, the FCC hasn’t given any guidance yet. We’ll post a follow-up on this as developments warrant.
