NAB and Sinclair blast 5G Broadcast rule proposal

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(Source: Sarayut Thaneerat/Alamy Stock Photo)

An effort urging the FCC to create a new rule to enable low-power television (LPTV) stations to deploy 5G Broadcast technology on a "voluntary, elective" basis is being challenged by the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) and Sinclair. Those challengers are among a group of high power TV station owners that are also stout advocates of ATSC 3.0, a competing, IP-based broadcast signaling standard that carries the consumer branding of "NextGenTV."

As a quick recap, owners and licensees tied to Boston-area LPTV station WCRN (including XGN/X1 Mobile and Tyche Media) have petitioned the FCC to create a rule that provides them the option to transition to 5G Broadcast, a 3GPP standard designed to deliver video and other types of applications to smartphones and other 5G-enabled devices. They also advocate that LPTV stations that use 5G Broadcast should continue to transmit at least one linear, free-to-air broadcast stream encoded at 720p HD resolution, with a minimum of 50% of the 6MHz-wide channel devoted to "public safety solutions."

Related:Castanet tees up 5G Broadcast market trials

They also want that asked-for rulemaking effort to be merged with a similar 5G Broadcast-focused petition from HC2 Broadcast, the nation's largest owner and operator of US LPTV stations. HC2 is being acquired by CONX, a special purpose acquisition company owned by EchoStar Founder and Chairman Charlie Ergen.

Against this backdrop, the FCC currently favors allowing TV stations to transition to ATSC 3.0 on their own schedules rather than setting the kind of hard deadline that the NAB pushed for.

How or if 5G Broadcast factors into the regulatory rules remains an open question.

NAB: Petition is not in the public interest

In its comments on the WCRN/XGN petition, NAB, which has already opposed the HC2 petition, argued the effort to establish the rule does not meet the public interest and threatens to fragment the market.

The FCC should not authorize individual TV stations "to abandon the established US television transmission standards in favor of a standalone, incompatible standard absent a compelling public interest justification, which Petitioners have not provided," NAB said.

And NAB said there's no reason to add 5G Broadcast amid the ongoing transition to ATSC 3.0, noting that the standard is already deployed in the largest US markets and 48 of the top 50 US markets, along with support from broadcasters in Brazil, India and South Korea and several Caribbean nations.

NAB also shot down claims that 5G Broadcast is critical to supporting mobile devices, arguing that the 5G Broadcast argument "conflates a worldwide technical standard with a worldwide receiver ecosystem."

Related:Boston low-power TV station owner seeks FCC rule on 5G Broadcast

Mobile matters

In separate comments opposing the 5G Broadcast rule proposal, Sinclair argued that it's "entirely unnecessary" with respect to mobile.

It notes that Sinclair and others in the ATSC ecosystem are already working with 3GPP and other standards-development bodies on an extension to ATSC 3.0 called Broadcast-to-Everything, or B2X. Earlier this month, ATSC said it approved a new "candidate standard" to form the foundation of B2X, including a common way for compatible devices to discover and access a B2X transmission. The candidate review process for B2X ends next June.

"Proponents of 5G Broadcasting have previously, and misleadingly, implied that 5G Broadcast signals can be received by any mobile device," Sinclair claimed.

Last month, "SuperFrank" Copsidas – a broadcast industry vet who owns XGN, X1 Mobile and Tyche Media and heads the Low Power TV Broadcasters Association – told Light Reading the WCRN field trial is using a commercially available "rugged" smartphone for first responders. He also claimed that a new commercially available smartphone for the US and Europe supporting 5G Broadcast is set to become available next March, but he declined to identify the supplier.

Interference concerns

Sinclair also believes that more engineering work needs to be done to determine whether 5G Broadcast operations can coexist with other spectrum users, including nearby TV facilities, "without creating an unacceptable risk of harmful interference."

XGN did assert in its petition that its 5G Broadcast tests generated no interference complaints, but Sinclair believes that's not enough for the FCC to come to a conclusion. Sinclair outlined a series of testing and analysis it thinks should be done.

"Until XGN addresses these issues, the claim that 5G Broadcast can operate independently in harmony with ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 is mere speculation," Sinclair said. "Unless XGN decides to take its own proposal seriously enough to submit replicable engineering studies that offer a reasonable basis for proceeding, the Commission should take no further action on this matter."

Castanet: No need for special rules or waivers

NAB also argued that ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast need not be mutually exclusive. The org pointed to recent technical revisions to the ATSC standard and demos from a startup called Castanet 5G that have shown how 5G Broadcast can coexist with ATSC 3.0, which would prevent broadcasters from abandoning ATSC.

Castanet claims to have developed a hybrid system for ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast that integrates 5G Broadcast packets within the ATSC 3.0 transport stream.

Castanet also weighed in on the proceeding, agreeing that the petition is not in the public interest and that it has been able to trial and prove out a hybrid system for ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast "without any need for waivers or rule changes." As such, it is asking the FCC to deny the WCRN/XGN petition and instead focus on HC2's pending petition.

Castanet claims to be working with a national consortium of LPTV licensees that represent more than 60% of the US population. It expects to roll out its platform commercially in mid-2027, timed for when new 5G-3GPP chipsets are deployed widely.

A show of support

The XGN petition received multiple comments of support via filings from broadcast engineering consulting firm Communications Technologies (CT), HC2, Milachi Media, The 5G Broadcast Collective, LowCountry 34 Media and the LPTV Broadcasters Association.

"The opportunity to have access to two-way cellular capacity can bring many opportunities" for LPTV stations that are "just barely breaking even financially," CT noted.

Milachi Media, which runs more than two dozen LPTV stations, tested 5G Broadcast at its WWOO-LD station and highlighted 5G Broadcast's smartphone focus.

"That free-to-air, device-native reach [of broadcast television] is the point of authorizing the 5G Broadcast standard, because it meets viewers where they already are: on the smartphones they carry every day," Milachi Media said in its comments.

HC2 is urging the FCC to move ahead with a formal rulemaking proceeding and to merge the WCRN/XGN docket with the docket opened in response to HC2's petition.

Reply comments in the proceeding are due on November 18.

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