The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC or Commission) Incentive Auction Task Force hasreleased additional software regarding the Incentive Auction’s repacking process. Staff-developed “constraint generator” software can be used to generate pairwise interference constraint files, and open source “feasibility checker” software can be used to evaluate the feasibility of assigning broadcast channels to stations during the repacking process consistent with the interference constraint files. In its Incentive Auction Report & Order, the Commission adopted an approach to evaluating the feasibility of assigning television channels to stations that can be used in the context of a real-time descending clock reverse auction and this software will help the Commission to do so. Interested parties can use the newly released software in conjunction with the previously-released TVStudy software to conduct their own repacking simulations. The Task Force noted that the software has not been finalized, and that the full Commission will make all final decisions regarding the repacking process.
