OTA TV Under Attack, Time to Fight Back

With one of those government coupons and $25, a poor family can buy a DTV converter box and can go right on watching broadcast TV for years to come.

For not a nickel more, they can stay on a first name basis with Judge Judy, Dr. Phil, Oprah, Alex, Elmo and Jay.

They can keep up with what's going in town by tuning in the local news once or twice a day.

They can get great seats for the World Series, the Super Bowl, the Oscars and the inauguration of the next president.

If they are immigrants, they can find a few channels (or at least a few programs) that speak their language, comforting them with images of the old country or introducing them to the new one.

And if danger approaches, they all know the regularly scheduled programming will be interrupted and a trusted and familiar face will appear to tell them what's going on, what to do and where to go.

Free, universal, over-the air television: It's an extraordinary service whose roots plunge nine decades deep into American history.

Yet, there are folks who believe that this service has absolutely no value. And what's frightening is that they now have the ear of the FCC.

Google, Microsoft and other well-heeled high-tech companies are pushing hard to get FCC permission to unleash countless unlicensed wireless devices into the broadcast spectrum that could disrupt the over-the-air service and lead to its eventual demise.

And that is apparently what they are trying to do. They don't want to share the broadcast spectrum as they are telling the FCC commissioners. They want it all.

"Take TV off the air," declared Michael Calabrese at a conference at Google's Silicon Valley headquarters earlier this week.

Calabrese is one of the chief advocates for opening up broadcasting's so-called white spaces for unlicensed devices as director of the New American Foundation's Wireless Future Program. The NAF is a shill for the high-tech industry.

According to a report in Communications Daily, Calabrese argued for converting all TV broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband uses and forcing today's millions of over-the-air viewers to cable, satellite or the Internet for TV.

Calabrese also candidly admitted that once the FCC opens the gates to the white spaces, the wireless interlopers would begin pressing for more transmitting power.

The FCC has proposed limiting wireless devices in white spaces to 40 milliwatts, but "we're going to push that up over time," he said.

Mark McHenry, CEO of Shared Spectrum Co., another proponent at the conference, concurred. "The FCC is going to start conservatively, but we're going to wear them down. In a few years, we're going to be at 10 watts all over the place."

Calabrese and McHenry have given it away: The white spaces proceeding is a spectrum grab and it must be stopped.

For broadcasters, the first order of business now is to convince three of the FCC commissioners not to go along with FCC Chairman Kevin Martin's plan to unloose unlicensed users in the broadcast white spaces.

It will not be easy. Martin has put the proposal on the Nov. 4 agenda and my latest intelligence is that he seems to have both Democrats, Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein, on board. That's all he needs at the five-person agency.

But broadcasters still have a chance to turn it around if they make the rights arguments.

Permitting unlicensed devices into white space will wreak havoc in the band, disrupting reception for the millions of American who still receive TV off the air. Many of these people cannot afford to subscribe to cable and satellite and owning a computer is still way beyond their reach.

The white space proponents' claim that they can equip devices with sensors that will prevent them from interfering with TV signals in unproven. In fact, a preponderance of the evidence that has piled up at the FCC indicates that they won't be able to do the job.

This crucial sensing technology is what they call vaporware in computer circles. It's a jumble of code and breadboard circuitry high-tech companies throw out there hoping someday to make it work.

"Let smart radios operate around the dinosaurs," said big-talking Calabrese at the Google conference, blithely dismissing and dissing every broadcaster in the country.

Let us see one smart radio that actually works. Hey, and while you're at it Microsoft, how about an operating system that doesn't crash.

Cable and satellite are no substitute for broadcasting. Underlying the white spaces assault as Calabrese made clear is the notion that broadcast spectrum is being wasted on broadcasting.

It's just not true. In natural or man-made disasters, when the power goes out and cable lines are knocked down, broadcasting is what tends to survive and provide service to all.

If broadcasting didn't exist, the Department of Homeland Security would have to invent it and is there anybody who doesn't believe the feds would screw it up?