Repurposing TV Station Spectrum

The Federal Communications Commission received an interesting petition in March from the owner of low-power TV stations. HC2, which owns 14 percent of the 1,800 low-power stations in the country, asked the FCC to allow the stations to cease the requirement to provide at least one free traditional broadcast signal. Instead, HC2 wants to repurpose the TV spectrum to use 5G technology to broadcast signals to 5G-enabled devices. TV delivered straight to cell phones would be an interesting product. HC2 believes the direction of the video market is towards mobility and wants the ability to change their operating model to meet shifting consumer demand. They argue that at a time when carriers are complaining about a lack of 5G spectrum, the spectrum from the LPTV stations will bring more mobile applications to the market without eating into normal cellular spectrum. To be clear, the FCC is not obligated to open a rulemaking. The agency gets petitions all of the time asking for rule changes. But it would be unusual for the agency to not at least consider an idea that creates a new market.