FCC Rejects Novel Alabama Public TV-Public Safety Plan
The FCC rejected a proposal from the Alabama Educational TV Commission to reassign its nine DTV licenses for use as a statewide communications system for public safety and public health agencies. It would have provided educational TV programming in the remaining bandwidth, except during emergencies. AETC sought a waiver of Section 377(c) of the Communications Act and other commission rules that cover the frequencies public safety communications can use. AETC filed the request with the Wireless and Homeland Security bureaus, but it was the Media Bureau that denied it.
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The bureau couldn’t grant the waiver because the frequencies sought for reassignment haven’t been available for more than two years under Section 377(c), Video Division Chief Barbara Kreisman wrote in a letter denying the waiver request. Before last June’s full-power broadcaster analog shut off, some of the frequencies had been in use for analog TV, the letter said.
"With respect to each channel and community proposed by AETC, we find that potential new entrant broadcasters have been precluded from applying for the channel … because the channel already was in use by an existing station, either for its analog or pre-transition digital operations,” Kreisman wrote. “In other words, while the spectrum in issue has been allocated for many decades, it is not currently available for assignment, and has not been so available for more than two years."
AETC and the various Alabama public safety agencies are still deciding how to proceed in light of the denial, said lawyer Todd Gray of Dow Lohnes, representing AETC. “We're disappointed with the result,” he said. “It’s an innovative plan that goes beyond the boundaries of what’s been done before.” AETC filed the request on behalf of Alabama and its departments of Homeland Security, Public Health, Public Safety and Education and its Emergency Management Agency.
The bureau also found that reassigning the spectrum would not serve the public interest, Kreisman wrote. It would reduce the number of UHF allotments available in the area, which might be needed by the 20 VHF stations operating nearby, she said. And it would be premature to reassign the channels when the National Broadband Plan sought to reallocate up to 120 MHz of the TV band, the letter said.