MMDS will be hot again since digital TV is on its way into American's homes.
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November 26, 1996
Television, Computer Makers Agree on Design of DTV Sets
By BRYAN GRULEY
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- The television and computer industries ended their bitter disagreement over the design of a new generation of TV sets. The compromise, reached after three days of intense negotiations, clears the way for federal regulators to finalize a plan for shifting the nation to digital TV and its promise of super-sharp pictures and sound.
Negotiators for computer companies, broadcasters and TV-set makers agreed to recommend that the Federal Communications Commission adopt a standard that doesn't specify a video format for digital TV, but instead lets the various industries and companies choose formats they think will best suit consumers. The compromise gives computer makers the technological flexibility they sought while making it almost certain that the FCC will act quickly, which the broadcasters want.
FCC Chairman Reed Hundt, who has resisted adopting a standard while the industries disagreed, called the compromise "wholly welcome" because it "eliminates needless government regulation on technical issues better left to the marketplace." Commissioner Susan Ness, who had urged the negotiations, said she is "confident" the FCC can act before the end of the year.
The industries barely met a deadline set by Ms. Ness. Broadcasters broke a stalemate last Friday by offering to drop their insistence that the standard include a plan that would have let them choose among 18 different formats for how the digital signal would be scanned on a TV screen. The computer industry had favored adopting a single video format better suited to computers or, as in the final agreement, none at all.
"We can take yes for an answer," said Dennis Wharton, a spokesman for the National Association of Broadcasters, a lobbying group. "The point is, we want to get this standard adopted so we can be building [advanced] TV sets in a year or two."
The standard still would set many of the rules for digital transmission, like how voice and video material is carried on the signal. And most TV-set makers are likely to build sets incorporating the 18-format plan anyway, at least for the next few years. But the lack of a mandated video format sets the stage for a lively competition between set makers and personal-computer manufacturers, who will woo consumers by combining sharp pictures with features peculiar to computers. For example, consumers could be watching a baseball game and call up statistics by dialing into the Internet, said Donald Norman, vice president of research for Apple Computer Inc., the computer maker that has been fighting the digital issue for years. Paul Misener, manager of telecommunications and computer technology policy for Intel Corp., said, "This is a great victory for PC users ... because [computers] won't be constrained by an overly intrusive government mandate." Broadcasters were especially eager for a deal because they worried that a delay might jeopardize their chances of getting, without paying for them, the airwaves they need to shift to the new technology. Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.), who is in line to become chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, has said he would explore auctioning those airwaves to the highest bidder.
TV-set makers have said digital sets could be on sale in two years at $1,500 to $3,000 apiece. Prices are expected to fall as the technology and manufacturing methods are perfected.
The debate neared a conclusion late last year when a committee of broadcasters, set makers and a few computer companies recommended the FCC adopt a TV-backed plan. But early this year, a group of computer companies led by software company Microsoft Corp. began lobbying against the transmission standard, arguing it would work poorly on computers and would add as much as $500 to a unit's cost. |
