The FCC’s November Open Meeting is on the calendar on the last day possible – Tuesday 11/30/10 – and prominently displayed on the agenda is a plank concerning the migration of mobile broadband services into television’s traditional chunk of spectrum.
The session kicks off at 10:30 AM Eastern, and features items on experimental radio services, dynamic spectrum use technologies, and a look at Congress’s Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act.
Here is the text of the TV spectrum plank: “The Commission will consider a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on rules to facilitate the most efficient use of the UHF and VHF TV bands. These proposals, an important step toward the agency’s spectrum goals as outlined in the National Broadband Plan, would take steps to enable mobile broadband use within spectrum currently reserved for use by TV broadcasters, including through innovations such as channel sharing and generating increased value within the VHF band.”
The FCC has been paying close attention. When the subject of the meeting was first mentioned by Chairman Julius Genachowski back in October, NAB’s Dennis Wharton commented, “NAB looks forward to working with policymakers to ensure that efficient spectrum deployment matches actual spectrum demand, and that America’s leadership in providing the finest free and local broadcasting system in the world is not compromised.”
