Senate panel sets deadline for TV spectrum transition

WASHINGTON - A U.S. Senate committee has taken the first step toward forcing television stations to end analog broadcasts, allowing the vacated spectrum to be used for new commercial wireless service and for public safety agencies.

The Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation on Thursday approved a bill to set April 7, 2009, as the date that all U.S. TV stations must move to digital broadcasts and vacate the upper 700MHz radio frequency spectrum. The committee voted down an amendment, offered by Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican, to move the digital television (DTV) transition deadline to April 7, 2007.

The full Senate will still need to approve the DTV transition bill. A House committee is expected to take up its own DTV transition bill as early as next week.

McCain and other supporters of a 2007 date argued that an earlier date could save lives in emergencies by getting the powerful spectrum into the hands of public safety agencies more quickly. But committee chairman Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, urged the committee to reject McCain's amendment, saying an earlier date could reduce the amount of money the U.S. government expects to raise in commercial auctions for the part of the spectrum not targeted toward emergency responders.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated the auctions to bring in $10 billion, and a separate congressional budget resolution has targeted at least $4.8 billion of that money toward the U.S. general treasury. The committee's bill has the auctions beginning in January 2008, but an auction scheduled earlier could result in lower bids, the CBO has said.

Stevens reminded committee members that Senate rules require the committee stick to the budget resolution and set aside at least $4.8 billion for the general fund, but Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat, suggested the CBO may have underestimated the amount the auctions will raise.

Kerry noted that some estimates have the spectrum auctions raising $20 billion or more. Saving lives during terrorist attacks or natural disasters should be a higher priority than budget rules, Kerry said.

"It doesn't make sense for me to have budget policy ... take precedence over homeland security," said Kerry, who supported the McCain amendment.

Following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists attacks on the U.S., the national 9/11 Commission recommended that police, firefighters and other emergency responders should have additional radio spectrum where multiple emergency response agencies can communicate with each other. In many cases, the multiple emergency response agencies responding to the Sept. 11 attacks couldn't communicate with each other because their radios operated on different spectrum bands.

The upper 700MHz spectrum allows for a stronger signal than many other spectrum bands, with each wireless tower covering about twice as large an area as a tower transmitting in the 1900MHz band, where many cell phones operate, according to backers of a DTV transition. That makes the 700MHz better for long-range data services such as WiMax and for rural broadband services, when part of the upper 700MHz spectrum is auctioned off for commercial uses.

Under current law, broadcasters are required to give up their analog spectrum by the end of 2006, but only in television markets where 85 percent of homes can receive digital signals.