The battle to own the nation's airwaves continued to percolate as station groups and owners representing more than 200 TV stations assailed FCC moves to take their spectrum while two wireless lobbies asked the Commission to clear channel 51 bandwidth for their purposes.
The newly formed Local Television Broadcasters group made it clear that it thinks the FCC is off base and that efforts to improve VHF reception--notoriously lousy for digital signals--so that UHF band spectrum can be cleared are misguided because of "immutable VHF propagation characteristics."
CTIA-The Wireless Association and the Rural Cellular Association, meanwhile, are looking at things from a different angle. They filed a petition asking the Commission to "prohibit future licensing of TV broadcast stations on channel 51--the top of available broadcast spectrum after the sell off of channels 52-69 for wireless during the DTV transition.
The associations would like broadcasters to "reach voluntary agreements to relocate to an alternate channel," the petition stated. For chances of that happening, refer to the lead portion of this story.
For more:
- Broadcasting & Cable has this story
- TVB has this story
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