The FCC received an interesting petition in March from the owner of low-power TV stations. HC2, which owns 14% of the 1,800 low-power station in the country, asked the FCC to allow the stations to cease the requirement to provide at least one free traditional broadcast signal. Instead, HC2 wants to repurpose the TV spectrum to use 5G technology to broadcast signals to 5G-enabled devices.

Low power television service (LPTV) was established by the FCC in 1982. The intention of the order was to allow the creation of more TV stations in small markets and to add stations in urban areas that want to broadcast alternative programming to the big network stations that were prominent at the time. LPTV stations that have converted to digital broadcast use 3 kilowatts for VHF and 15 kilowatts for UHF channels. Analog stations broadcast at 50 watts for VHF and 500 watts for UHF channels.

HC2 is asking that the FCC allow a transition to the 5G standard as an alternative to having to upgrade stations to the ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 standards. HC2’s vision is to abandon transmissions to TV sets and instead transmit high-quality video to cell phones and other 5G-capable devices. They recognize that the market for linear TV is dying and that a huge number of people spend many hours per day on cell phones. There are currently no cell phones capable of receiving these signals, but HC2 believes that if the FCC allows the change that phone makers will build the technology into phones.

TV delivered straight to cell phones would be an interesting product. HC2 believes the direction of the video market is towards mobility and wants the ability to change their operating model to meet shifting consumer demand. They argue that at a time when carriers are complaining about a lack of 5G spectrum, the spectrum from the LPTV stations will bring more mobile applications to the market without eating into normal cellular spectrum.

HC2 sees a lot of other possible applications. For example, the spectrum could be used by vehicle fleets to send software updates to vehicles without bogging down normal 5G networks. The LPTV networks could be used to provide last-mile connectivity to customers communicating with direct-to-device satellites. Those satellites could beam signal to a hub and have the signals redistributed locally using the LPTV spectrum, eliminating the need for a customer to have direct line-of-sight to a satellite.

HC2 says that early tests of the technology show the ability to transmit signal for up to 20 miles. They’ve also been able to maintain signals to a cell phone in a car traveling at 60 miles-per-hour.

It’s an interesting petition, and it will be interesting to see who opposes it. It sounds like satellite providers might side with the idea. It will be interesting to see if cellular carriers see this as a threat or an opportunity – I suspect they won’t like a new competitor. Handset makers might support the idea if they think it will help to sell more cell phones.

To be clear, the FCC is not obligated to open a rulemaking. The agency gets petitions all of the time asking for rule changes. But it would be unusual for the agency to not at least consider an idea that creates a new market.