TV Coalition Pitches Own National Broadband Plan

The Coalition for Free TV and Broadband said that using the vaunted one-to-many mobile broadcast delivery, rather than auctioning broadcast spectrum, was the most efficient way to handle wireless broadband spectrum traffic crunches and would also be the most lucrative for the U.S. Treasury. At a Press Club event in Washington, the coalition, which is made up mostly of low-power stations but also backed by auction opponent Sinclair Broadcasting, said that allowing TV stations to keep their spectrum and provide an over-the-top service to offload wireless traffic during peak periods could yield a "perpetual" revenue stream to the Treasury worth potentially as much as $216 billion. It is pitching the plan to Congress as it contemplates legislation that would give the FCC authority to compensate broadcasters for giving up spectrum whose auction to wireless companies is predicted to raise several billion dollars -- there is no firm figure -- for deficit reduction. The congressional supercommittee is a new focus of that lobbying effort as it looks to cut the deficit by over a trillion dollars. Coalition Chairman Irwin Podhaiser said that thousands of low power stations and hundreds of full-powers should not be sacrificed needlessly for the sake of incentive auctions. "Needlessly" is at the crux of their argument.

They say their alternative to an auction would:

• Avert a spectrum shortage by providing a vastly more efficient way to deliver the bandwidth-intensive broadband traffic
• Lead to lower prices for mobile broadband data while improving service quality
• Eliminate the need for incentive auctions, protecting Americans who rely on full power and low power broadcast television from loss of service.
• Provide more than $60 billion in new revenue to the U.S. Treasury in the first fifteen years, far more than the projected net proceeds from incentive auctions
• Provide a perpetual revenue stream that could be worth as much as $216 billion to the U.S. Treasury.