It’s in the books, the FCC will take some time at the end of June to discuss the ATSC 3.0 transmission standard with stakeholders.

FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai is on the ATSC 3.0 bandwagon.

The FCC today voted unanimously to allow broadcasters to voluntarily deploy the emerging “next-generation” television transmission standard known as ATSC 3.0.

A plan for voluntary adoption the “next-generation” television broadcasting transmission standard known as ATSC 3.0 has been proposed at the Federal Communications Commission, which represents a seminal event in the development of the standard.

The National Association of Broadcasters believes that the FCC should give broadcasters some space to determine how to work with the new ATSC 3.0 standard, despite calls from MVPDs and others for the Commission to look into retransmission consent, capacity or content issues in its upcoming Notice of Proposed Rulemaking.

Broadcasters are asking the Federal Communications Commission to complete a rulemaking to deploy the ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission standard by Oct. 1, 2016.

The ability to capitalize on over-the-air broadcasting is up to the FCC and whether or not it approves the transition to the ATSC 3.0 next-generation transmission standard.

The issue of whether or not a station can get out of the simulcasting mandate for ATSC 3.0 is still up for debate, as it is one of the questions that the FCC is currently seeking comments on.