FCC Considers Shifting TV Airwaves to Net

The Federal Communications Commission is considering taking back some airwaves from television broadcasters and auctioning them off to wireless companies to increase the availability of wireless broadband services. Friday, the Consumer Electronics Association released a study it commissioned on the value of the chunk of airwaves set aside for TV broadcasters. If the FCC took back all those airwaves and auctioned them, the government could make up to $62 billion, the study found. Such an approach would cost about $12 billion in payments to broadcasters and about $9 billion to "migrate all households that rely on over-the-air broadcasts to subscription services," the study found. The political will to take such an approach could be weak, however, because the federal government just spent $2.15 billion over the past two years to help consumers move to digital-only broadcast television. Consumers who rely on free TV now might also take a dim view of being asked to subscribe to cable or satellite television,. Many of them just had to go through the trouble of either buying new digital TVs or hooking up digital converter boxes to their old TVs to keep them working. The FCC isn't looking at taking away all of the broadcasters' airwaves. Instead, FCC officials are focusing on the benefits of taking back a portion of the airwaves set aside for digital TV broadcasts and auctioning those off to wireless companies that want to offer more wireless Internet services.