Subject:  FCC "pushing" DTV......
Date:     Mon, 19 Oct 1998 195142 -0500 (CDT)
From:     "Roy L. Beavers" <rbeavers@llion.org>
To:       emfguru <rbeavers@llion.org>
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---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 19:08:50 -0400
From: Bdumpe@worldbank.org
To: "Roy L. Beavers" 
Cc: mrgary@flipag.net
Subject: Re: DTV

Roy: If you care to pass along, please do.

This week, Mr. Hearn from Florida who interacts with Gary asked me to
provide him information for on broadcast towers. The information given to
him about the proposed towers was not clear, but after a discussion with
him I surmised it could only be Digital television (DTV) which Albert Gore
and members of Congress hailed. I spent today investigating. Yes, Bill and
Gary, it is truly DTV that is coming to play in your neighborhood.

Despit the strong language of Senator Patrick Leahy, DTV will play in
Vermont withing 5 years (Burlington, Hartford, Rutland, St. Johnsbury,
Windsor). Yes, Deb Carney, Fox and Twenver have DTV construction permits in
Colorado; Libby et al so does the Chronicle in San Francisco, CA. In fact,
FCC's construction plan appears to be to issue building permits in eveery
MAJOR city nationwide! FCC is saying, "The Telecommunications Act of 1996
(section ? I will look up) authorizes them to move ahead with DTV permits.
We [FCC] have nothing to do with it, Congress mandated it." This is per
Sussana Zwerling of FCC (Policy) to whom I just spoke. She said they are
not "preempting state and local government law, but merely working with
them to get the 800 to 2000-foot towers erected." Since I spoke to her
about policy, I will now have to file an "ex-parte communication brief with
FCC.

Once before I had mentioned that since the FCC Local and Statte Government
Advisory committe (LSGAC) was liaising with Roz Allen of FCC Wireless
Bureau, the chances of the fox jumping in with the chickens was great. It
was. the attorney Kellman who chaired LSGAC and was initially pretty
strong, obviouslly jumped in. Despite Leahy's S-2271, on which so much hope
was placed and which got lost in McCain's Committee, FCC worked with
industry behind the scenes. Palpated into submission, local governments
caved in so that now 61 DTV construction licenses have been issued. I asked
Susanne, How can this have escaped the aviation industry? They were the
most voiceferous." Yes," she said, "received over 800 comments in a short
period." The truth is that FCC received so many comments on Docket 97-182
(DTV) that their system could not store the deluge. Had the Senator from
Vermont not introduced S-.2271, the avalange of anti-DTV comments would
have frozen the FCC computer system. Maybe it did, because soon thereafter
FCC started a system retrofit.

Anyway thanks to Bill Hearn, this came to light. No there is no DTV bill in
Congress What the industry and the local government of Ft. Pierce, FL were
actually referring to was The Telecom Act. And as a result of this, the FCC
updated their 47 CFR, Section 336. Susanne told me that if the FCC is
hampered from rolling out DTV, they certainly will take steps to preempt
state and local law, which of course they cannot do unless the rewrite the
5th Amendment.

Should anybody wish to review this DTV (MM Docket No. 87-268) business tune
into http//www.fcc.gov/dtv. From there you can branch off to everything. Be
sure to go into the Fifth Order (18th bullet down). It tells it all so
Susanne said. OET Bulletin on DTV is not available yet.

Bert





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Reprinted with permission of Roy Beavers, http://www.feb.se/EMF-L/EMF-L.html