March 2012 NTIA Report on 1755-1850 MHz Could Have Significant Implications for Broadcast ENG Operations

On March 27, 2012, the U.S. Department of Commerce, through the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced its plan to make 95 megahertz of government spectrum at 1755 to 1850 MHz available for wireless broadband use. For the past several years, the wireless industry has sought a portion of this band (1755 to 1780 MHz) for commercial wireless use. The coveted spectrum is allocated for wireless services on a worldwide basis and could be easily combined with the current U.S. commercial broadband allocation at 1710-1755 MHz.

The NTIA report concluded that it is not possible to make just the 25 MHz at 1755 to 1780 MHz available for wireless broadband but that the entire band must be repurposed. NTIA states that repurposing the entire band will be a challenge including "high cost and long timeline of the undertaking, estimated to be approximately $18 billion over ten years." Further, these estimates do not include "costs to incumbent systems in comparable destination bands" or the fact that some federal systems could stay in the band indefinitely. The report also identified the 2025-2110 MHz as the preferred option to relocate most government operations. The 2025-2110 MHz is allocated on a primary basis to the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) and is the principal band used for Electronic News Gathering (ENG) operations.

The Report's Executive Summary indicates that "comparable spectrum needs to be found to move federal systems" and that "DOD has identified the 2025-2110 MHz band as the preferred option to relocate most of its operations." The Executive Summary seems to indicate that existing operations would continue to retain their co-primary status stating "non-federal services currently licensed as primary or co-primary will maintain that status." However, the main body of the report advocates that ENG operations be removed from the current BAS band (2025 -2110 MHz) and recommends that this spectrum be used to accommodate federal systems now using 1755-1850 MHz. Specifically, the main body of the report states that with regard to Tactical Radio Relay systems, Tracking, Telemetry and Command systems, Video surveillance systems, and unmanned Aerial systems, ENG would need to relocate to a different band or must operate on a non-interference basis (NIB) with regard to government systems. With regard to Aeronautical Mobile Telemetry, the report goes even further and states that sharing with ENG is not feasible.

This NTIA report has significant implications for NAB members and broadcasters in general that have 2 GHz Electronic News Gathering (ENG) operations. Given the vital role the 2025-2110 MHz band plays in broadcast news and the fact that finding a replacement band for ENG is unlikely, this is an area where broadcasters need to be vigilant and make sure our voices of opposition are heard.

IEEE Broadcast Technology Society Issues Call for Papers

A Call for Papers has been issued for the 2012 IEEE Broadcast Symposium, to be held October 17-19, 2012, in Alexandria, Va. The Symposium Committee seeks timely and relevant technical papers relating to all aspects of broadcast technology, in particular on the following topics: