Some DTV Issues Could Make Telecom Bill

[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
Lisa Sutherland, staff director for Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska), says that the senator hopes to roll some of the unresolved DTV issues into the 1996 Telecom Act rewrite being marked up in his committee next month. The issues were unresolved after Senate rules required the DTV hard date bill to confine itself to that date and the establishment of a subsidy for DTV converter boxes since both involved money (funds for the converter and revenues from the auction of reclaimed analog spectrum after the DTV conversion), and the bill was a budget reauthorization measure limited to money-related items only. One DTV issue the committee is likely to approve, said Sutherland, is the broadcast flag, which protects DTV broadcasts from unauthorized digital redistribution. At recent hearings, the committee seemed in general agreement on the need for the flag. Other issues that could be added to the telecom bill include cable's downconversion of broadcasters DTV signals, and allowing unlicensed wireless devices in the "white areas" between broadcasters' DTV channels.
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