NAB’s Smith: FCC Myopically Focused on Broadband

National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith says the Federal Communications Commission is "myopically focused" on broadband and getting broadcaster spectrum into the hands of wireless companies, when those companies cannot match the reliability of broadcasting to get critical info "to the masses."

In a speech to the Advanced Television Systems Committee convention in Washington, Smith said the irony was that in the hands of wireless companies, the spectrum could not deliver video as efficiently as broadcasters, and would be charging viewers for a service broadcasters deliver to them for free.

"The focus of the FCC shouldn't be how can spectrum be taken away from broadcasters in order to bolster the wireless industry's goal of developing an architecture with the reach and reliability of ours, but rather, how can we continue to expand broadcasting's robust and efficient architecture to other platforms," he said.