calabrese and david donovan, two members of a commerce department advisory committee on the matter of spectrum use. of spectrum use. >> our goal this week is to learn about spectrum use. that is our first goal. the second goal is to hear some different viewpoints on how the spectrum and the best managed. we have two guests to introduce this week. both are members of the spectrum advisory committee. we have david donovan and michael calabrese. what is a spectrum? what is a spectrum? it is known as the public airwaves. it is the elected magnetic atmosphere that allows the transmission of radio waves.

it is a spectrum of frequencies that can carry different waves with different propagation characteristics. some are high frequency waves carry a lot of information but not through walls or trees or over long distances. then there are low frequency bands such as those used by television which are considered to be the very best. those frequencies. radio signals for multiple walls, trees, and over long distances. it is a set of frequencies that are useful for communicating. it is all owned by the american people as a kind of public resource. >> anything to add to that definition? >> i think that is essentially correct. it started with the sinking of the titanic. wireless communications has been important in this country.

through the department of commerce and since the 1920's through the federal trade commission and the federal communications commission, you have a government entity that has been established to examine uses and some of the licensing structure that will allow certain businesses to use certain parts of the spectrum for certain things federal government use and military use is still controlled by the department of commerce in the independent radio advisory committee. the commercial side of the business, radio, television, and cellular telephone is regulated through the federal communications commission. this spectrum was discovered when the first person under the spoken word. it is the ability to transmit and send information over which can be heard by the human ear.

-- over a frequency which can be heard by the human ear. as you move up higher, we may not be able to hear them. the develop devices that are capable of listening and transmitting it back in frequencies that we can hear. it has been there. it has been commercially looked at since around the turn of the century. >> michael calabrese, is this spectrum finite? >> that is an interesting question. it is finite in terms of the number of frequencies. when you get beyond the freedom -- radio frequency, if you start getting into other types of electronic airwaves such as x- rays, gamma waves, and in visible light. it is all part of the same spectrum. we are talking about a tiny part of the spectrum that is useful

for radio communication. it can carry digital bits. >> we're talking about sound and radio. this spectrum also carries pictures. everything on the spectrum is wireless, correct? >> correct. >> we found this crazy quilt online put out by the commerce department. this is a visual map of the spectrum is. this large section here is devoted to a.m. radio. these sections here are all broadcast tv. they seem to have a lot of the spectrum. is that correct. barack >> they do. that chart actually overstates what the actual amount is in terms of the picture. the beachfront spectrum -- >> why do they call it beachfront?

>> there is debate about that. you for using spectrum which has barely the propagation characteristics to carry signals over fairly long distances. the best area for carrying signals over long distances is india. the laundry you go, the for the signal can do. television occurs in two sections. one is vhf the other is uhf. that band really blossomed in its ability to be used for video pictures. one thing about the chart that is somewhat deceiving because of the way it is laid out is that of that area, the so-called beachfront that everyone has been talking about in washington -- it essentially starts a little bit below channel 14 and moves

up. it starts around here and moves up and inns up here. television broadcasting is the beachfront. it has exclusive use of 5.1% of the spectrum. in major markets, we share spectrum. you can see it on the chart. channel 14 to channel 20, we channel 14 to channel 20, we share with police departments and other operations. we use about 8%. about 91% of that beach front spectrum is used by someone else. >> how is this spectrum licensed? >> that is an important point. one thing this chart indicates is that everything is spoken for. when you look at all of these bands of frequencies, there is a crazy quilt of different allocations. these are just allegations.

behind this are tens of thousands of licenses. the way that works is that a lot of the spectrum is reserved by the federal government for its own operations. >> what percentage of the spectrum is reserved by the government? >> the thing about spectrum is that it is like real estate. location, location, location. the federal government has roughly 40% of the so-called beachfront spectrum that is selling for billions of dollars at auction. they are using very little of that any particular place or time. the military is by far the largest holder of spectrum. they want to have it in case they needed for certain missions. >> where with the military spectrum light on this chart? -- we are with the military spectrum be on this chart? -- we are with the military

spectrum be on this chart? >> it may not be labeled. it may be labeled as government use. this fixed, mobile, radar capabilities. one of the things is that the spectrum is finite to the extent that technology exists. in the 5 gigahertz band at the far end of the church -- chart -- is in chile what you are looking at is a description as to -- in the frequencies s channels like a checkerboard or a ruler. you are at the lower in the band and move up. york in kilohertz and they go up to mhz and gigahertz.

the further up you go, you need a shorter line of sight to use those bands. at a higher band, military radar can work quite well it is line of sight coming back and forth with airplanes flying overhead. as technology develops, we have been able to use that part of the band that is non-beachfront for other services. yeah of unlicensed wi-fi -- you have unlicensed wi-fi that share. they are planted in various locations. >> why? why are they plotted in various locations? >> different frequencies are useful for different

activities. if you are trying to send a lot of data wireless fiber, you would want to use of high frequency. you would want to use a low frequency if you are going to a very long distance, even though it would take more power. >> where would and apple company, where would the ipod sit on this chart? how much space would they be taking on the spectrum? >> a lot of those frequencies would be used for wireless. the television channels reallocated the 700 mhz band. that is channels 52 to channels

69. that band was recently auctioned -- that spectrum was reallocated and auctioned. it is now being used for wireless, mobile video services. that is the first step. there are roughly about 790 megahertz of spectrum, channels of spectrum that have been allocated for wireless broadband services that have yet to be fully built. they are intended to be built out in the next couple of years. >> how much of the spectrum is unused or unclaimed? any of it? >> the conventional wisdom in washington is this chart. it looks like everything is being occupied. certainly, everything has been allocated for service and

assigned with a license to some party or the other. it may be to a federal agency like the military or the commercial spectrum where licenses are issued for use. if you go out with a spectrum analyzer and actually measure the use of the airwaves -- we did that from the roof of our building in washington near the white house. this probably the busiest set of airwaves in the country. another study did it in manhattan and other places. even over the course of the business day in downtown washington or in manhattan, less than 20% of the beachfront spectrum, the very best frequencies, are occupied on any given day at any given place. in the rural areas, it is single digits. most of the spectrum is unused most of the time. that is why using smart media

technologies to do the spectrum sharing that david mentioned before, we believe that is where we will find the greatest amount of new capacity will be needed to meet the exploding demand for mobile broadband data like the iphone. >> we've significantly disagree on this. if you go into new york city and say these are the channels been used on the beachfront, television stations are on 24/7 and using those frequencies. we also share frequencies with three other channels used for public safety in new york city. standing on a roof of the monitor, you may not pick up all of the safety usage. it looks fake, but it is not. -- it looks vacant, but it is

not. c-span, cnn, every news operation is using those channels for a wireless microphone operations for reporting. depending on where you stand, you will not pick up those channels being used. that is one piece of this. the other piece of this is really important is that when you start looking at broadcasting or any other use, when you have equipment that has been sold in the public -- consumers just bought digital equipment. the government subsidized 34 million dtv converter boxes. that is all over the syracuse of the spectrum. if i turn to channel 20 right now and have someone using channel 21 in washington, d.c.,

i will interfere with someone trying to watch to 20channel 20. you cannot talk about spectrum use in a vacuum. it is ultimately a consumer issue. you have to look it with the equipment is out there, how is the auction, and how it is operating. the idea of more efficiency has to be examined. nothing is more efficient if the net result is that the equipment does not work because of interference. we can get into the engineering aspect of that, but it is a consideration that is often overlooked in these discussions. >> this is "the communicators" on c-span. we're talking about the broadcast spectrum, what is, in the best way to manage it. our guests are members of the spectrum advisory committee. michael calabrese is also the director of the wireless future program at the new america

foundation. he is a lawyer. mr. donovan is also a lawyer and president of the association for maximum service television. you can get an idea of where they are coming from. recently on this program, fcc chairman julius genachowski was on along with the founder of the cell phone. both of them have something to say about the spectrum and efficiency. >> we need to find ways to look at spectrum policy to encourage more efficient use of spectrum. there are policies like potentially secondary licensing of spectrum, more flexibility that will encourage private market and lead to more efficient use of the spectrum. >> the solution to the spectrum problem is not redistributing the spectrum. it is not taking away from one entity or sharing it. it is creating new capacity, in

effect, creating new spectrum. that process has been going on for 110 years. the potential for increasing the amount of spectrum is enormous. >> michael calabrese, spectrum efficiency. >> mary cooper had a very good point. that is why we have cowper's law. that is that 95% of the increase in the carrying capacity of the last half century has come not from making more airwaves available for use. that has been a very small part of it. the biggest part has been by shrinking the cell sizes, reusing spectrum. when you see a cell tower, we used to think about cell phone. it used to cover many square miles.

increasingly, particularly in the cities, the companies have to make these coverage areas much smaller because they are running out of spectrum to use. they can reduce the same frequency over and over again by shrinking -- they can reuse the same frequency over and over again by shrinking the area. given the huge projected increase in mobile data demand from smart phones and laptops, we think increasingly we will have to have smarter radio devices that use wi-fi much of the time. if you are at home or in a public place, in your communication should go over it shared spectrum into the local wireline that is available and only use the expense of licensed

spectrum and carrier-built infrastructure when you really need the mobility or do not have access to a local network. we will have to use those kinds of technologies. >> our position on this is that we've gone from an analog to digital transition. within the frequencies allocated to broadcast, 108 mhz of spectrum or 25% of the spectrum previously allocated to television was reallocated. we are doing more with less right now. if you look at the architecture and structure of the local broadcaster, this is not your father's or grandfathers broadcasting. with digital transmission, we are able to do high-definition television free, or the air. the second thing is we're able to do multi test services.

-- multi-cast services. new programming streams have come on line. in addition, we're doing mobile as well. if you are looking for high- quality video content, you have a tower reaching out to millions of viewers. it includes cable subscribers as well. most cable subscribers use it from the cable had to transmit it down the wire. they seek in a number of areas. -- they see it in a number of areas. a significant number of cable subscribers have off-air cable capability in their home. 35% of american homes rely on off-air television. that includes cable subscribers.

where they also use it and where it may not be readily apparent is the signal going to the cable head coming in over the air from the broadcaster. it is the same thing with satellite. we spent a year working with small cable companies in rural areas. it is almost too costly o connect those systems with fiber. the over the air a signal and the reach of that signal is critical for cable subscribers. we worked well with a mcta in the american cable association to make sure it was not disrupted. >> what have you seen in the national broadband plan that affects spectrum management customer what do you think of the proposals made? >> there are some good things in there.

there is an emphasis on reallocating spectrum that may be available for auction on an exclusive basis to companies like at&t's for devices like the iphone. i think that reflects the government's desire to get some auction revenue. >> we're on this spectrum mount -- where on thiss spectrum map is that realistic? higher up? this way. >> right. one of the most controversial things in the broadband plan is the recommendation that an additional 20 channels of

television be reallocated for broadband, to move from broadcast to broadband. we just went through a dtv transition to free up 18 channels, the plan calls for freeing up another 20. i agree with that in general terms. is going to be very tricky to accomplish. one thing that is very interesting that is a recommendation in the plan concerns more efficient use and sharing. the solid blue bands that represent television broadcasting over here, it is not all allocated only to

broadcasting. there are somewhat over 10,000 local channel slots for tv stations. there are only about 17% of those channel slots used by full-powered tv stations today. during the analog days, they had to the stations out to avoid interference. the fcc decided year ago to allow all of the unassigned channel slots, the majority of channels in the tv band, it to be used on an unlicensed basis for what we were calling wi-fi on steroids. when the channel frequency was not being used by a licensed station, if 20 is not being

used, you could go on 21 and use a low-power devices. for the reasons he said, the commission said that we have to be very careful not to interfere with television reception so we are requiring that these unlicensed devices operate at extremely low power levels and check the database to see what channels are available so that they do not interfere with viewing. >> i think we sort of agree with dr. cooper. spectrum management does not dictate taking spectrum away from an existing use that is serving hundreds of millions of viewers in the united states. if you begin to look at the broadband plan, against our perspective is this.

we believe that we are part of the overall wireless architecture in this country. as you go forward and look at the demand, the vast majority of that is to see video pictures. our architecture has already been built for and is providing that. we think we're part of this plan. we support the spectrum inventory build. we have some concerns. the concerns are if you look deeply into the broadband plan, it does not really go into a hard, strict inventory of how all of this spectrum is being used. there are assumptions made. there are studies that have been made which vastly over project the demand going into the

future. it does not consider a number of factors, particularly with respect to meeting that demand through the system we have already. one thing that bothers us is that there is a statement in the broadband plan that they want to take whatever 20 mhz, 40% of the channels now allocated for television broadcasting, they want to take that. you have a can of tennis balls. i decide to reduce that can buy 40%. can i put three balls in the camn? no, they will not fit. you have to make some decisions. either you get rid of some of the balls or shrink them all down. if you look at their proposal, to essentially take every television station from 21 to 51

and say that you have to leave within three to five years, you are talking about over 670 television stations in this country. in new york, it is 11 stations. in los angeles, is 16 stations. in addition, you have literally thousands of translators, low- powered tv, small broadcasters that air often forgotten that will have no home. once you take this channels away, where do you put them? i have to take those stations and try to squeeze them into a much smaller band. people will lose service. >> reid hunt recently said he thinks broadband is the new national media. >> i disagree. for the last 50 years and going

into the future, a point to multi. distribution service, broadcasting license on a local level, has provided basic news and information. the economics of news generation in this country, particularly with respect to reporters on the street f, it is all local television driving that. it would be a tragedy if we shifted to a model -- right now, news on the internet is not economically sustainable by itself. >> i agree with the former sec chairman in general. i think there is -- i agree with the former fcc chairman in general. there is a convergence towards the internet as people get superfast fiber to the homes. what is important about broadcasting is ultimately the content, including local content. it is not so much the tran