Constraint Files for Repacking

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology and the International, Media, and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus, members of the Incentive Auction Task Force, have updated the final set of constraints files (initially released in October 2015 and now updated in November 2015), which will be used by the repacking software as an input telling it whether a television station can be assigned to particular channels during the incentive auction repacking process, consistent with statutory, international and other requirements. The update reflects a small number of engineering parameter changes to six stations and the license relinquishment of one station which occurred in October. The details of these changes can be found in the Public Notice accompanying the release of these constraints and the new baseline data. As with the prior set of constraint files (released in May 2014 and July 2013), the new set consists of two separate files, the "domain file" and the "interference_paired file.

In addition, the final set of data on incumbent licensees in the broadcast television bands used in generating these final constraints has been posted. As we stated in our October 2015 release, included in this set of supporting files are a few new input files necessary as a result of our international coordinations. See Appendix K in the Auction 1000 Application Procedures Public Notice for more details about these files. Finally, we are posting the updated TVStudy parameter file used in the pairwise study to generate the underlying data from which these updated final constraints are derived.

Constraint Generator Software

The FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology and the International, Media, and Wireless Telecommunications Bureaus, members of the Incentive Auction Task Force, have released the TVStudy Data Processing and Constraint Generation (Constraint Generator) software used to generate the repacking constraint files. The Constraint Generator processes data produced by the FCC's TVStudy software to create pairwise interference constraint files in the format adopted by the FCC for use in the repacking process of the upcoming broadcast incentive auction. These constraint files can then be used by Feasibility Checking software to rapidly determine whether a given set of stations can feasibly assigned channels subject to the pairwise interference constraints.

Download Zip of Updated Final Constraint Files Released November 2015 (using actual channels)

  • Domain File
  • Interference_Paired File

Download Zip of Supporting Files for the Final Constraints (Nov. 2015) (as described in Appendix K of the Auction 1000 Application Procedures PN) including:

  • parameters.csv
  • us__lm_stations.csv
  • us_lmw_stations.csv
  • lm_lmw_station_channel_exception.csv
  • canada_distance_protected_stations.csv
  • canada_plus_minus_2.csv
  • southern_border_domain_restrictions
  • mx__future_operating_channels


Download Zip of Final Constraint Files Released October 2015 (using actual channels)

  • Domain File
  • Interference_Paired File

Download Zip of Supporting Files for the Final Constraints (Oct. 2015) (as described in Appendix K of the Auction 1000 Application Procedures PN) including:

  • parameters.csv
  • us__lm_stations.csv
  • us_lmw_stations.csv
  • lm_lmw_station_channel_exception.csv
  • canada_distance_protected_stations.csv
  • canada_plus_minus_2.csv
  • southern_border_domain_restrictions
  • mx__future_operating_channels