|
DIRECTV & DISH: FCC Folly on Antennas
SkyReport
DIRECTV & DISH: FCC Folly on Antennas
The FCC has antenna ADD, suggest DIRECTV and DISH in their latest joint filing to the Commission. If that isn't corrected, the duo say, consumers could be jettisoned back to the 1950s as far as their legal rights to receive "distant (broadcast) signals" from satellite providers are concerned.
The recent STELA legislation, the DBS point point out, eliminated all qualifiers on what constitutes a suitable antenna. Commenting on STELA's distant signal language, they note, "Plainly, a household is now unserved, and therefore eligible to receive distant stations, if it cannot receive a signal of sufficient strength by means of a simple indoor antenna, an antenna of the type used by most consumers for over-the-air reception."
In its most recent Notice on the subject however, the FCC "still proposes to base both predictive model and measurement method upon the unrealistic, outdated (and now unauthorized) assumption of a gigantic directional antenna towering over the consumer’s house in a 1950s cityscape." Ergo, the DBS guys argue, it's time to modernize the definitions and admit that a signal received only via a towering backyard structure is not appropriate in 2010.
We can already hear the broadcasters yelling on this one.
|
