in fact cause interference with Dish and Direct, wouldnt both companies then be able to have it stopped and be able to sue for loss of revenue due to the interference?
Maybe. But, pack a lunch. And tens of millions of dollars for the legal bills. And meanwhile (for years) we would have damage done to DBS subscribers.
First, I believe that it will cause some level of interference to millions of DBS subscribers. The bad news is that you might be missing a transponder here or there (many channels), and perhaps just intermittently. Merely moving your dish location may help. For a while. Or going to a larger dish. Or, installing some physical shielding to keep the local terrestrial signal out of the dish. Or, some other local, individual mitigations may be effective for each unique situation.
But that's the problem. It will not be millions of easily identified, qualified, or quantified interference to end-users. And perhaps most would be "Minor Interference" that could be mitigated with "Minor adjustments" to the DBS reception equipment with "minor costs"***
The real bad news is that it is likely that it would be the end user who would end up inconvienienced, and no matter how you try to hide the direct costs of mitigation – it will be the DBS customer who pays for it – one way or another. And the fear is that some folks would just say to heck with it, and go back to cable, or stay away from DBS in the first place.
**Definition of "Minor Interference" and other "Minor" items (EG: Minor Costs, Minor inconvienence, Minor Surgery): "Minor Interference" is interference for someone else. It becomes "significant interference" when it impacts you.
Sadly, This whole thing reminds me of what we all went thru in the C-Band days with telephone microwave links sharing the frequency allocation. It was a huge pain in the rump. Been there, done that! And EXACTLY why the DBS band was created WITHOUT ANY interfering terrestrial uses co-located in the same frequency band! WE LEARNED from that experience. Or, at least some who remember it learned from that experience. And, With the dramatically larger number of DBS subscribers (above the C-Band peak) – I fear that this would be a disaster!
Please take a moment and write to your rascals in Congress!
More info here:
http://www.sbca.com/government/spectrum.htm
http://www.sbca.com/
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