NAB: Broadcasters Must Be Part of Broadband Ecosystem

On Tuesday, National Association of Broadcasters President Gordon Smith will tell the House Communications Subcommittee that broadcasters are part of the solution to the broadband gap and rural deployment, not the problem. "Broadcasting and universal broadband do not represent opposite choices or an 'either-or' proposition for policymakers and the public," he said. Instead, he argued, both are an important part of a communications ecosystem, suggesting it was better for the government to let all flowers bloom rather than pull up broadcasting by the roots and hand it as a bouquet to the wireless industry. Smith said broadcasters are already aggregating and sharing their spectrum for wireless broadband. Smith also said that using fixed devices in the TV white spaces--it is mobile unlicensed devices NAB has long opposed--could help deliver broadband to rural areas, as well as for backhaul. "Because the broadcast bands are used less intensively in rural markets, with appropriate technical protections fixed broadband services can operate in this spectrum without undermining consumers' access to free, over-the-air digital television or new mobile DTV services."