FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                   NEWS MEDIA CONTACT:
October 7, 1999                              Michelle Russo (202) 418-2358

      Commission Reaffirms Satellite Home Viewer Act Order

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) today released an Order on Reconsideration
regarding Satellite Home Viewer Act (SHVA) issues.  The FCC denied petitions filed by two home satellite
carriers, DIRECTV and EchoStar, asking the Commission to revisit its February 1, 1999 Report and
Order (FCC 99-14, CS Docket 98-302).  

The SHVA is a copyright statute that allows home satellite carriers to retransmit broadcast
network signals to their subscribers under limited circumstances.  The Commission's February Report and
Order established ways to measure and predict the strength of television signals for the purposes of the
SHVA.  The Order on Reconsideration largely reaffirms the findings in the Report and Order and does
not comment on proposed SHVA legislation currently before the Congress.

Under the Satellite Home Viewer Act, only those households that are "unserved" by an adequate
over-the-air television signal (a signal of "Grade B" intensity) are eligible for satellite-delivered network
signals.  The Commission's goal has been to help the broadcast and satellite industries identify more
accurately those consumers who are eligible to receive network service as part of their satellite television
package.  Toward that end, the February 1 Report and Order created two tools.  The first is an on-site (or
"at-home") signal intensity test for measuring the strength of a television signal at a particular household. 
The second is a computer-generated predictive model, the Individual Location Longley-Rice (ILLR) model,
that is intended to reduce the number of on-site tests required and that can be used by the public when and
where satellite service is sold.

Today's Order on Reconsideration denied the petitions for reconsideration because they offered no
new information.  The Commission reiterated the importance of including accurate land use and land cover
(vegetation and buildings) data in the ILLR prediction model.  The Commission again urged interested
parties to develop an application and methodology for including these factors that can be evaluated and
accepted by the scientific and technical community. 

Additionally, in response to the EchoStar petition, the Commission made two minor changes to the
testing regimen so that the at-home test will be simpler to use.  Specifically, testers now have the flexibility
to use an additional type of testing antenna and the allowable bandwidth of the testing instruments is
broader.

For more information on the SHVA issues, please refer to the Commission's SHVA web page at
http://www.fcc.gov/csb/shva.

Action by the Commission, October 5, 1999, by Order on Reconsideration in CS Docket No. 98-
201 (FCC 99-278). Chairman Kennard, Commissioners Ness, Furchtgott-Roth, Powell and Tristani.

                             -FCC-
                                
Cable Services Bureau contact: Donnie Fowler at (202) 418-7200

Report No. CS 99-12