News Article

WASHINGTON, D.C.—The FCC is offering broadcasters the opportunity to auction off broadcast spectrum for use in wireless broadband services. FCC officials have set a 2014 timetable for completing the project, which involves a complex three-step auction process.

 

Womble Carlyle Telecom attorney Gregg Skall discussed the topic with TVTechnology.com. Skall said the plan may be overly ambitious and said that most full-service broadcasters “are not anxious to retire their stations or even to give up the DT2 and DT3 capabilities that have come along with the digital conversion.”

 

Skall has been closely monitoring the FCC’s National Broadband Plan and has written about the topic previously.

 

Gregg Skall represents individual broadcasters and other parties in their regulatory dealings before the Federal Communications Commission and in their commercial business dealings. He serves as Washington Counsel to several state broadcaster associations. He also works with telecommunications companies and with radio device manufacturers to obtain FCC approvals and to assure regulatory compliance. Skall is a frequent author on broadcasting and the law and is published in Radio Business Report/Television Business Report and AllAccess, where his column “FCC Uncensored” is a regular feature.