The FCC has granted a one week extension for reply comments in the proceeding looking to take many of the preliminary steps toward incentive auctions by which the FCC would reclaim parts of television spectrum for use by wireless broadband companies. Comments are now due on April 25. We wrote about the many issues in this proceeding, here. Issues include the sharing of channels by independent television stations, whether stations that share spectrum are entitled to must carry rights under governing law, and how the FCC can change the digital television operational rules to make the use of VHF frequencies, where stations operating on those channels have experienced severe technical issues after the digital transition, more friendly for digital operations if the television spectrum needs to be repacked so that contiguous portions of the UHF band can be auctioned to wireless companies.
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