News Article

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Gregg Skall’s October just keeps getting bigger.
 

The Womble Carlyle communications attorney already has received a tremendous amount of attention in recent days for his innovative plan to incorporate local television broadcasters as active participants into the FCC’s National Broadband Plan. Now, Skall has been asked by the U.S. State Department to serve on an advisory committee for international communications.
 

Skall has been appointed to the Department of State’s Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy. The committee advises the State Department on the major economic, social and legal issues and problems in international communications. Recent topics the committee has addressed include:
 

Committee members include top-level executives in the communications industry, as well as some of the nation’s leading communications attorneys and academics. Skall will serve a two-year term on the committee.
 

Recently, Skall published a widely-read response to the FCC’s National Broadband Plan, which proposes that local TV stations surrender 120 MHz of the television spectrum for repurposing to broadband. Instead, Skall said the FCC should let broadcasters be part of the solution by allowing them the technical flexibility to provide broadband triple-play services. Such a solution would serve the FCC’s goal of expanding broadband service, while giving broadcasters a new model for growth and maintaining the viability of local, over-the-air public service oriented television.
 

Skall’s counter-proposal has been covered in recent issues of the Radio Business Report/Television Business Report and TVNewsCheck, two leading broadcast communications industry journals.