For a month, the FCC has been conducting the first phase of the TV buyback auction. Now that digital TV is everywhere and multiple streams of programming can be packed on a single signal, the FCC wants to compress the TV spectrum to free up space for new wireless services.<\/p>\n
The details are largely confidential, but the first phase is complete. The FCC wanted to find out the maximum number of channels willing to go out of business or move to digitally share signals – the “clearing target”.<\/p>\n
The good news is they got the maximum bandwidth they were shooting for – 126 MHz nationwide. That will leave channel 29-x as the highest over the air channel number. <\/p>\n
Details<\/a> May 31st, the actual bidding starts in the reverse auction – with the target set, the license holders will be lowering their prices until the clearing target is met. Hold out for too much and your license may not sell. Lower your price too much or too soon, you leave money on the table. This is really high stakes poker.<\/p>\n Then the challenge is to see if communications companies will ante up the cash to actually buy up all the bandwidth, with some cash left over for the US Treasury. AT&T and Verizon are prohibited from bidding in most major markets as they already control most of the bandwidth. Broadcasters – including those that didn’t participate will have up to 18 months to move to their new channels. Where there was no need to get licenses turned in, the new bandwidth should come on line much sooner.<\/p>\n If all the bandwidth is sold, there will be only 28 TV channels left in the US. The reality is most TV viewing now is over satellite, Cable TV and more recently directly over the Internet. Wasting millions of watts on over the air TV to a shrinking audience serves less and less of a purpose.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For a month, the FCC has been conducting the first phase of the TV buyback auction. Now that digital TV is everywhere and multiple streams of programming can be packed on a single signal, the FCC wants to compress the … Continue reading
\nFCC News Release<\/a><\/p>\n