DBS Keeps Fighting Alaska/Hawaii Multicast

[Nick]

Satellite TV companies stuck to their guns concerning the
delivery of multicast programming from Alaska and Hawaii
broadcasters, saying the mandate from the Federal
Communications Commission is an unreasonable and
unconstitutional interpretation of the Satellite Home Viewer
Extension and Reauthorization Act (SHVERA).

In a filing sent to the Portals Tuesday, DirecTV told the FCC
that required DBS delivery of local multicast programming for
Alaska and Hawaii places enormous capacity burdens on
satellite TV. "In order to meet these increased capacity
demands, DirecTV would have to reallocate transponders to
Alaska and Hawaii that otherwise would likely have been
allocated for use in providing HD locals service in other
markets," the company said.

In its comments, EchoStar detailed the constitutional
implications of mandating carriage of multicast signals. "The
fact that must-carry requirements burden the speech of
multichannel video programming distributors (MVPDs) is
undeniable. In essence, such laws dictate that MVPDs 'speak'
by carrying the messages of local broadcasters," the company
said.

While satellite TV fought the multicast mandate, the Alaska
Broadcasters Association supported the regulation in its
filing.

"The Supreme Court has upheld requirements, such as
must-carry, against First Amendment challenges when the
contested requirements further an important governmental
interest unrelated to the suppression of free expression and
any incidental burden on First Amendment freedoms is no
greater than essential to the furtherance of that governmental
interest," the association said in its FCC comments.

The new round of filings is tied to a request from the
National Association of Broadcasters asking the FCC to oppose
any changes in the multicast rules. EchoStar and DirecTV have
asked the commission to reconsider its multicast mandate for
the two states.

www.SkyRetailer.com - used with permission

[thebigjp]

nice story, now would someone explain what in the world Nick's post is about.

[harsh]

nice story, now would someone explain what in the world Nick's post is about.I'll take a whack at it:

SHVERA requires that all of the digital programming broadcast in Alaska and Hawaii be carried. Multicasting is what they call it when they put more than one programming stream on a single "channel". Say, for example, that your local NBC affiliate has DT-1 for HD, DT-2 for the SD version of DT-1 and DT-3 for a weather channel. According to the broadcasters, D* and E* must deliver all three.

I'm not so sure that the satellite companies should be required to carry "filler" streams. Some of these seem more like placeholders than important programming and in that light, I think the broadcasters are working the system.

Another telephone analogy:

Many long distance carriers charge more than triple the rate to carry calls to the apparent third world countries of Alaska and Hawaii. My current carrier charges 33% more to call Juneau than they do to call London. Based on this model, I think the DBS people have a foothold.

[Mike123abc]

The DBS companies want to do HD light and have a compressed MPEG-4 picture of just one video stream per channel. If they have to carry the sub channels they either have to compress the main video stream even more (probably push it over the edge of what people would want to see) or just give the multicast channel more bandwidth for the extra video signals.

Then you also get into the problem or equal bandwidth for must carry stations. If for example they decide main video stream gets 8Mbit/sec and the secondaries get 3 Mbit/sec and there are 2 sub channels and a total of 8+3+3 14MBit/sec for the channel, they probably would be forced to give another channel with only 1 video stream 14Mbit/sec.

Essentially to give acceptable pictures for all the streams in the picture they have to allocate more bandwidth.

[Nick]

Broadcast affiliates weighed in on the Alaska/Hawaii multicast
debate at the Portals, saying the nation's biggest satellite TV
companies don't have much of an argument when it comes to
their opposition to delivering the extra local broadcast feeds
for viewers in the far-flung states.

At issue is a Federal Communications Commission ruling handed
down in August that requires DBS companies delivering local
channels to Alaska and Hawaii to also carry local broadcast
multicast content. The ABC, CBS and NBC Affiliates Associations
told the FCC in a filing this week that it should dismiss petitions
from both companies that ask the agency to reconsider its
multicast decision since they don't meet commission requirements.

"Not only do DirecTV and EchoStar fail to provide sufficient new
facts to warrant reconsideration, but neither petitioner presents
any new facts that were unknown and could not have been
known during the course of the rulemaking proceeding itself," the
associations said in joint comments. "The petitioners were given
a full opportunity to comment, all relevant matters were fully
considered, and the commission made its policy choices to ensure
that the needs of the public and all interested parties were fully
taken into account."

The associations also said there's no merit to the satellite TV
companies' "airy attempts" to assert that multicast amounts
to an unconstitutional taking. "Legal precedent is well settled
that the type of restriction on use that the commission's
implementation of full digital carriage in Alaska and Hawaii
would impose on the two satellite carriers is not a taking nor
constitutionally suspect," the groups said.

www.SkyReport.com - used with permission

[Tower Guy]

It would appear to me that the argument that there is insufficient bandwidth for multicasting of local signals implies that D* and E* never intended to deliver full bandwidth HDTV to their customers in the first place.

Restated, if D* and E* have planned for enough transponders for full bandwidth HD signals, they also have sufficient bandwidth for multicast signals. Why should the DBS companies care how the broadcaster decides to fill up that bandwidth, even if it were 5 or 6 SD programs.

Next, if a broadcaster decides to turn off the subchannels during sporting events, does that mean that a DBS viewer would not gain the full PQ improvement?

The bandwidth argument is only a temporary problem that will go away when all the HD satellites are running and analog LiL has been decomissioned. The DBS companies should be planning to install HD receivers even for non-HD customers.