STAMFORD, Conn. –The LPTV Broadcasters Association today sent a formal letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr calling for immediate regulatory action to allow low-power television to use the 3GPP 5G Broadcast standard as a voluntary transmission option for LPTV stations.
The letter urges the Federal Communications Commission to fast-track a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking in response to HC2 Broadcasting’s 2025 Petition for Rulemaking (MB Docket No. 25-168) and move expeditiously toward final rules. HC2—which owns 131 LPTV/Class A stations and four full-power stations—has been granted experimental licenses to allow two LPTV stations in Connecticut to test 5G Broadcast.
If approved, LPTV operators say they could use 3GPP 5G Broadcast to deliver linear TV, live events, emergency alerts, and datacasting directly to millions of 5G- and 6G-enabled smartphones and tablets—no additional hardware or SIM card required.
The association has been at the forefront of using 5G Broadcast as an alternative to ATSC 3.0, (aka NextGenTV), to which U.S. broadcasters are transitioning. 5G Broadcast is a direct-to-mobile platform that runs independently of any other service on a smartphone chip be it cell service, satellite, wifi, or Bluetooth.
Frank Copsidas, an early advocate of 5G Broadcast—which has garnered more support in Europe than in the U.S. so far—is chairman and founder of the LPTV Broadcasters Association and began publicly pushing for the use of 5G Broadcast in 2023 after he formed “XGN,” a startup dedicated to promoting the standard. That same year, XGN began testing 5G via LPTV station WWOO-LD in Westmoreland, N.H., which had been awarded the industry’s first application for an experimental 5G Broadcast STA.
At the NAB Show last month, another start-up, Castanet, announced the launch of a hybrid ATSC 3.0 and 5G Broadcast internet pilot network in Las Vegas. The pilot network uses ATSC 3.0 as the transport layer for 5G Broadcast in alignment with current FCC regulations and industry standards. Castanet said the deployment demonstrates how LPTV spectrum can serve as a foundational asset in next-generation internet infrastructure.
In his letter to the FCC chairman, Copsidas said broadcast TV “has been stuck in the regulatory Stone Age while cellular technology has advanced at lightning speed.”
“Recognizing 3GPP 5G Broadcast under Part 74 will unleash a major new opportunity for investment,” Copsidas wrote. “Industry forecasts show the U.S. market for 5G Broadcast services and infrastructure is poised to grow tenfold over the next five years**. It’s time to delete this outdated dichotomy and give American broadcasters — especially agile LPTV operators—the tools to capture this explosive growth while strengthening emergency communications and delivering the mobile-first experience consumers demand.”
Copsidas said that new smartphones that support 3GPP 5G Broadcast are slated to be deployed this fall and said that LPTV is the “ideal proving ground for this technology.”
“The spectrum, technology and Q3 2026 smartphone rollouts are ready,” the letter concludes. “The only missing piece is forward-looking policy.”
