Greg Bimson said:
waltinvt, I think Yo Howdy is talking about the SHVERA's direction to the FCC to create a separate set of qualification rules for digital.
Maybe I'm mixed up but I thought the FCC's response to the '04 SHVERA directive was to issue a letter to congress this past Janurary basically saying that the existing (L-R) prediction method used for analog was plenty adequate for determing who's unserved with respect to digital.
I seem to remember, they did suggest congress address some minor, potential signal interference problems specific to digital but the jist was they didn't seem to think we needed much in the way of new rules for qualifing for digital.
However arn't the top 100 DMAs supposed to have some kind of digital signal testing proceedure in place now for "appealing" the pediction model determinations?
Greg Bimson said:
The problem here is how the distant license is now crafted. In my opinion, a permanent injunction stops Dish Network from delivering ALL distant network feeds, both analog and digital. I do need to re-read the law to make sure.
The issue here is that there is only one license to deliver distant networks. If Dish Network is no longer allowed to use that license (which is what the injunction will say), then Dish Network will not be allowed to retransmit distant locals of any kind. Like I said, this is my opinion, as I need to re-read the law.
Right, wrong or indifferent, if the courts actually prohibit Dish from providing ANY networking programming (SD, HD, local or distant), it could immediatly propel Direct TV to forefront and end up creating the monoply they were trying to avoid when they denied the "E"-"D" merger.