Let broadcasters control the spectrum spigot, says Capital Broadcasting CEO

Rather than taking away broadcast spectrum, the FCC should empower broadcasters to help smooth the flow of high-bandwidth content like video by incorporating a broadcast overlay into any national broadband plan.

The idea, proposed by James Goodmon, president-CEO of Capital Broadcasting, has a direct link to the broadcasters' ongoing push to develop mobile digital TV (MDTV).

Since cellular service providers will "never have enough" spectrum to transport all the content being produced, broadcasters, who are already using the spectrum and have developed ways to broadcast it to mobile devices, can help out as long as "the wireless broadband provider has a device with a broadcast chip in it," Goodmon said. "When there is a request for a large amount of video at one time, they hand that off to the broadcasters who downloads it all to the mobile device."

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