FCC Shouldn’t Set Aside Two Channels Everywhere for Wireless Mics, Public Interest Groups Say
The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition is questioning in a filing at the FCC whether the FCC needs to set aside two discrete channels everywhere for wireless mics. Michael Calabrese of the New America Foundation’s Wireless Future Project, who made the case at the FCC on behalf of PISC, told us the group instead wants the channels to be reserved where needed, but otherwise open for Wi-Fi and other unlicensed use.
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In recent meetings at the FCC, wireless mic interests have stressed the need to protect them from interference following an incentive auction of broadcast TV spectrum. In a recent meeting at the FCC with members of the FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force, representatives of Broadway theatres offered “a first-hand, user’s perspective on the importance of wireless microphones, intercoms, and cue-and-control devices to today’s sophisticated theatrical productions” (http://bit.ly/15gXOcl). Representatives of ESPN and Shure made a similar case before aides to the three FCC commissioners and Wireless Bureau staff (http://bit.ly/1cGqKMf).
Calabrese said he believes the two sides are not that far apart. Wireless mic advocates “want a continuation of the status quo, which is two reserved channels for microphones on an exclusive basis,” he said. PISC says instead these channels should be reserved “as needed” but otherwise open to unlicensed sharing. The use of the TV band database “can allow for much more intensive use of those two channels and hopefully ensure that there’s at least a minimum amount of unlicensed in each market nationwide."
A review of the TV band database shows that operators of wireless mics are making reservations today only in places like Manhattan and Washington, D.C., Calabrese said. “Microphones don’t even bother to worry about finding space in most of the country."
"There is no need to reserve TV channels exclusively for microphone use, since microphone operators have effective access to a large number of vacant TV channels that are not available for unlicensed use and that can meet their needs under ordinary circumstances,” the PISC filing said (http://bit.ly/180UcHf). While “professional microphone operators need the two reserved channels for certain very large and complicated events (e.g., televised professional sports, the presidential inauguration), we believe that on a day-to-day basis microphones can rely first (as they do now) on out-of-market TV co-channels that are not available for unlicensed use.” Even in New York City “microphones have at least 18 vacant TV channels that are effectively available for their use,” PISC said.