Industry News Flash
November.12 2007 Filed in: This Just
In
‘WHITE SPACES’ REMAINS LEGISLATIVE HOT TOPIC
From Sound & Communications Newsletter
Responding to news that the FCC has rescinded its October deadline for issuing new regulations governing use of the hotly contested "white spaces" within the TV spectrum, individuals active on the legislative front, such as Shure Inc.’s Sandy LaMantia, lauded the continuing efforts of a growing bipartisan group on Capitol Hill lending its support to wireless microphone interests. "I want to thank all of the legislators in Washington who are calling for a thorough evaluation of these most complicated issues," LaMantia said following the release of a letter signed by three members of the House of Representatives from Nevada urging FCC chairman Kevin Martin to give mindful consideration to the debate. The letter's authors, Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Jon Porter (R-NV) and Dean Heller (R-NV), are the architects of the latest bipartisan push to ensure that meaningful and comprehensive interference protections are given to wireless microphone operation as the FCC presses forward on a path toward issuing new rulings for white spaces use.
“We feel that the Commission is well-served to rely on its engineers to develop a tight interference-free solution to the white spaces issue before allowing new products on the market," Berkley, Porter, and Heller said in their letter to Martin. "The recent report released by the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology confirms our most serious concerns—that technology to permit safe cohabitation of unlicensed devices with wireless microphones just doesn't exist.”
First off our existing systems relied on, for the most part, a generous amount of unused radio wave space in both the UHF and VHF ranges. At the current moment, the transition to digital stations is taking up twice the space as stations broadcast both in analogue and digital. Although it would seem that when the analogue signals go off air there will be more room than before, the opposite will be true. The FCC is not going to just abandon that space to us audio guys, they are going to auction it off to the highest bidder for their exclusive use and we will no longer get to share the space with the new owners like we did with TV stations. Besides even if we could share the space we can't rely on that 'dead space' still being clear at show time.
Secondly, the remaining space that digital TV will occupy will be greatly reduced and the bandwidth (amount of space) needed for all of that digital data takes up all of their allotted space. It use to be that in a pinch we could ride along in the same bandwidth as the local station in an area of their space they were not using.
In the early days having a wireless audio system used to be a luxury that was used by a only a few and it was unusual to have more than one system being used at the same time in the same vicinity. With the advances in wireless technology and scale of manufacture, the use of wireless systems are ubiquitous with all manner of audio productions now that very high quality systems have become so reliable and affordable. Wireless is now assumed in audio and is no longer a novelty.
Unfortunately the ending of this story has yet to be written. Protecting our investment in wireless equipment is going to become more difficult. A lot of us are going to find that our current hodgepodge collection of wireless microphones are destined for the landfill. My final bit of advice - It is more important than ever to seek help from knowledgeable professionals. This is not the time to wing it.
From Sound & Communications Newsletter
Responding to news that the FCC has rescinded its October deadline for issuing new regulations governing use of the hotly contested "white spaces" within the TV spectrum, individuals active on the legislative front, such as Shure Inc.’s Sandy LaMantia, lauded the continuing efforts of a growing bipartisan group on Capitol Hill lending its support to wireless microphone interests. "I want to thank all of the legislators in Washington who are calling for a thorough evaluation of these most complicated issues," LaMantia said following the release of a letter signed by three members of the House of Representatives from Nevada urging FCC chairman Kevin Martin to give mindful consideration to the debate. The letter's authors, Shelley Berkley (D-NV), Jon Porter (R-NV) and Dean Heller (R-NV), are the architects of the latest bipartisan push to ensure that meaningful and comprehensive interference protections are given to wireless microphone operation as the FCC presses forward on a path toward issuing new rulings for white spaces use.
“We feel that the Commission is well-served to rely on its engineers to develop a tight interference-free solution to the white spaces issue before allowing new products on the market," Berkley, Porter, and Heller said in their letter to Martin. "The recent report released by the FCC's Office of Engineering and Technology confirms our most serious concerns—that technology to permit safe cohabitation of unlicensed devices with wireless microphones just doesn't exist.”
Ok - so why is this such big news and why should you care?
Using wireless audio systems has always been tricky and it isn't getting easier. The federal government continues to force us to "improve our lives" and this time it's High Definition Digital Television. Although there has never been an allocated slot for professional wireless audio, using the 'white space' (frequencies not used by local TV stations) was allowed as long as the output power was infinitesimally small as to not interfere with licensed use. But the mandated transition to Digital HDTV not only requires ALL of us to spend money on a new TV receiver it also is profoundly changing the wireless audio landscape in a couple of important respects.First off our existing systems relied on, for the most part, a generous amount of unused radio wave space in both the UHF and VHF ranges. At the current moment, the transition to digital stations is taking up twice the space as stations broadcast both in analogue and digital. Although it would seem that when the analogue signals go off air there will be more room than before, the opposite will be true. The FCC is not going to just abandon that space to us audio guys, they are going to auction it off to the highest bidder for their exclusive use and we will no longer get to share the space with the new owners like we did with TV stations. Besides even if we could share the space we can't rely on that 'dead space' still being clear at show time.
Secondly, the remaining space that digital TV will occupy will be greatly reduced and the bandwidth (amount of space) needed for all of that digital data takes up all of their allotted space. It use to be that in a pinch we could ride along in the same bandwidth as the local station in an area of their space they were not using.
In the early days having a wireless audio system used to be a luxury that was used by a only a few and it was unusual to have more than one system being used at the same time in the same vicinity. With the advances in wireless technology and scale of manufacture, the use of wireless systems are ubiquitous with all manner of audio productions now that very high quality systems have become so reliable and affordable. Wireless is now assumed in audio and is no longer a novelty.
Unfortunately the ending of this story has yet to be written. Protecting our investment in wireless equipment is going to become more difficult. A lot of us are going to find that our current hodgepodge collection of wireless microphones are destined for the landfill. My final bit of advice - It is more important than ever to seek help from knowledgeable professionals. This is not the time to wing it.
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