Univision, the nation's leading Spanish-language broadcaster, stepped up in defense of preserving broadcast spectrum for broadcasting.

"The spectrum resource plays an especially vital role in serving the communications needs of Hispanic households, who disproportionately depend upon the over-the-air broadcast service for information, entertainment and connection to this community," Univision said in the FCC's inquiry on expanding broadband access in the country.

Reallocating broadcast spectrum to wireless broadband services "would impede or altogether end consumers' access to important broadcast services," it said.

"Univision service to the Hispanic community dramatically illustrates the importance of looking beyond purely market factors and of assigning value to the public policy benefits of an existing spectrum use when considering the efficiency and value of that use," it said.

"[C]onsumers' interests in digital television and broadband should be neither equated nor traded off against one another," it said.

"Hispanic households in particular will be served only by a communications policy that allows both platforms to thrive in parallel."