FCC 's Rosenworcel Blasts ATSC 3.0 As A 'Household Tax'

The FCC's Jessica Rosenworcel has criticized a proposed set of TV standards as a "household tax," due to its lack of backwards compatibility.

Addressing a conference of Catholic Bishops in Washington DC last week, Rosenworcel complained that the FCC "is about to rush this standard to market without understanding the consequences for consumers."

According to The Register, not only will Americans have to pick up the cost of developing the new standard – ATSC version 3 – through higher cable bills, she warned, but since the standard is not compatible with the current ATSC 1.0 spec, it also means everyone will need to buy a new television set, set-top box, or similar, to use it.

Jessica Rosenworcel

"This is not a great boon for consumers," she argued. "It's a tax on every household with a television." Instead, she proposed that the FCC "go back to the drawing board" and come up with a way to move over to the new standard "that better serves the public interest."

There are clear advantages to ATSC 3.0. It is eagerly anticipated by the cable industry because it will allow 4K and 3D shows to be streamed over the air and so allow them to compete more effectively with internet-connected streaming boxes. It will also mean that smartphones and tablets should be able to access that same material without using up data. The standard also uses the latest sound standards and will allow for greater interactivity.

The main content – sounds and pictures – will continue to be sent over the air but ads and other personalized and interactivity data will be sent using internet protocols.

Rosenworcel's call for a delay in deploying it until consumers are less impacted has, predictably, not gone over well with the industry.

"Unfortunately, Commissioner Rosenworcel misunderstands the goals and asks of broadcasters," said the National Association of Broadcasters' Dennis Wharton in response. "We simply want to compete on equal footing with national wireless and pay TV providers… This will be a free and local programming innovation that the FCC routinely supports, and that tens of millions of consumers will enjoy."

Read More Now