White spaces decision will haunt the FCC

"Thanks" for the fear-mongering. I'll be "watching" for the "sky" to "fall" due to this "terrible" decision that will finally give us a real chance for competition in broadband internet connectivity. By the way, do you have a "master's degree" in using scare quotes? Very "nicely" done.

Wow, I didn't know that places like Battle Mountain or Winnemucca, NV were so crammed with TV transmitters. With a good antenna, you are lucky to pick up a few translators. White space devices will be most useful in rural areas, especially in the unused "prime real estate" of high VHF. With a good size Yagi antenna, your wireless ISP could have a 50 mile radius from a single tower.

And who are you ArtDecoDalek and what are you qualifications on the subject? Suppose you have a PhD? Then again we wouldn't know because you were too busy attacking the article.

ArtDeco;
You are simply wrong. Seybold makes an excellent point here, and it is not based in fear. Interference in a wireless system is serious. I have extensive experience hunting and correcting interfernce sources for a variety of companies. Interference is difficult to detect. When it happens, generally nobody knows what to do. There are very few people/companies in the country that have the experience required to understand it.
Also, competition in broadband is already here. There are many different options. This type of "public" deployment is designed to attract low-profit customers that will eventually graduate to paid services that will offer more robust speed and reliability.

I'm sorry, I could resist double-posting when I saw the idiots rushing in to defend the writers "PhD". Quite neglecting the fact that is probably the writer himself, I've seen dumber people with PhD, shocking though that may seem. Secondly, his PhD has absolutely no relevance on his argument. Now, I *do* wish to other Anon who made a valid point. Yes, interference *is* a problem, and so on, very difficult to work around, but the simple solution is for the new audio devices to frequency hop just like the new white space devices. Yes, its a setback, and a (probably major) problem for the audio devices. However, the benefits are completely worth it, and the audio devices will eventually learn to share the frequencies. What I have a major problem with is the authors doomsday predictions of TV's which don't work, concerts with horrid sound, and in general, the implosion of the universe. Those predictions have no basis in fact.

Wow,this is run folks--most of the articles I write are designed to get people thinking, and I have to agree that in rural America there will not be an issue--but go to my web-site and look at my article using LA and a 100 Mile radius of it and find me any white space. Also why should the thousands of wireless mikes have to be replaced because of this new ruling?
Another point I guess that I should make when it comes to "frequency Hoppiing" is that it has never really worked in any of the systems starting back with CDPD in the mid-1990's. Perhaps because of advances in technology it might work today--but the systems I am seeing are using WiMAX and a "smart" series of logic to determine where there is interference and avoid it, we shall see, meanwhile to you doubters, I have two things to say--unless you have spent time on a radio, cell, or two-way radio site looking for interference to get your system back on the air, I don't think you should make comments about interference so quickly, and secondly you might want to print out this column and tuck it away for reference in a couple of years.
Andy

Andy, I just read a post that discredited your article due to the digital TV transition and I tried to reply to it, however, you removed it. Please allow all points of view in the comments, not just the ones you agree with or are able to rebut.

The lack of specifics in your fright-fest is the scariest thing I see here, Mr. Seybold.

The "police, fire and business two-way radio" to which you so broadly refer (without troubling to mention that these functions have their own protected bands that remain sacrosanct and where the bulk of their needs are met) can and will without any doubt whatsoever adapt to a "busier" electromagnetic environment, assuming it becomes a significant problem. The sensitivity, selectivity and noise rejection of radio technology has advanced enormously in recent decades. Existing error-correction and digital-packet techniques can deal in stride with enormous interference, particularly where the data they carry is merely low-bandwidth audio. And advances continue.

Meanwhile you fail utterly to acknowledge the broader benefits of the FCC's decision. The advantages gained by means of services this will enable can be expected to more than make up for the drawbacks.

You are right about one thing: TV receivers are indeed noise-sensitive and may fare poorly. But TV on those bands must die off regardless, and among the services that utilize the bandwidth will undoubtedly be alternatives that help to replace it.

Sure, it serves the purposes of some ravenous mega-corporations. You seem to hint that the FCC is guilty of some sort of impropriety in this respect. Specifics, please. Who has influenced whom, when where and how?

On balance, I firmly believe the FCC has made a GOOD decision.

Wow! No Master's or PhD's around these parts. Some of us could certainly benefit from remedial English classes, though. Check with your local community college. It will have some "white space" you could constructively occupy for a while.

FierceWireless invites comments from our readers. However we will delete any derogatory comments or comments that contain obscenities. --Sue Marek, editor in chief

EE makes excellent points. Furthermore, the author clearly has his nose so high the birds are nesting there, judging by his post "You might want to print out this column and tuck it away for reference in a couple of years."

Perhaps you might want to print out these comments and tuck them away as a daily reminder to qualify your remarks and be specific. I would have made some points regarding your comment, but EE made excellent counterpoints already.

This is a major victory for consumers everywhere, and one of the rare good decisions by the FCC. I look forward to the new devices which will use this space, and to watching this author suddenly forget he made this post, much like the guy who promised BD+ would be uncracked for 10 years.

Andy is on right path about "frequency hopping" not working in practice in the field, despite best efforts of PhD's to prove on paper it is great. Frequency hopping recently used by the GSM crowd as one of their answers to the major spectral efficiency advantage that CDMA carriers gained. Cute theory on paper, didn't really work in the field for GSM voice applications. But it allowed Cingular folks to save face and claim CDMA was bad bad nasty stuff (right up until they deployed UMTS/HSDPA. So now we find out that 3.9G OFDMA has become the new bad :)

I see where you're going with the CB reference. Here's a little "UGC-history" from Wikipedia on Citizens Band "CB" radio. Certainly miss the glory days of CB... haha:

"In more recent years, CB has lost much of its original appeal due to the advancement of technologies and changing values. Some of this rapid development includes: mobile phones, the Internet, and Family Radio Service. The changing radio wave propagation for long-distance communications, due to the 11 year sunspot cycle, is always a factor for these frequencies. In addition, CB in some respects became a victim of its own intense popularity. Because of the millions of users jamming onto frequencies during the mid-to-late 1970s and early 1980s, channels often were intolerably noisy and communication became difficult. Many CBers started to use their radios less frequently or not at all after this period."

LOL.

A "big" win for Microsoft and the 'Goog, eh Seybold? More like a big win for the American public--a.k.a the owners of this spectrum. It's troubling how many pertinent facts you gloss over in the course of this editorial--if I didn't know any better, I might think that you've been drinking the NAB's Kool-Aid all day.

At the core of the NAB's argument is a desire to hold on to valuable spectrum that is not currently in use. The broadcasters are not currently using this extremely valuable spectrum and have no plans to make use of it anytime soon but are loathe to allow this public resource to be used by anyone else--despite the fact that a new competitor to existing wireless services would foster innovation, lead to lower prices and greater consumer choice and would create new jobs.

It's quite convenient that you note that much of the white spaces are already being used by devices such as wireless mics and that this does not create interference because the devices are licensed. Does every church, school and venue that uses wireless mics really have a license, Andy? The fact of the matter is that the vast number of users who are using wireless mics are currently doing so on an unlicensed (and, might I add, technically illegal) basis, yet this has caused little to no interference in the surrounding bands.

Finally, since you seem to be such a history buff, why don't you remind your readers what happened the last time the FCC allowed for the unlicensed use of spectrum, Andy? Or is the WiFi revolution too unimportant to the entrenched interests of the wireless world to merit mention?

Few things annoy me so much as the pompousness of would-be techno-mavens who use alphabet-soup to confuse (and therefore impress??) the uninitiated to whom they are so superior.

DJ appears almost to be pursuing some other conversation to which the rest of us are not privy.

For those unable to understand DJ's post (which would be approximately EVERYONE), he is referring to competing and emerging standards in 2G (second-generation) and 3G (third-generation) mobile phone technology.

Most of the acronyms are methods of allowing multiple devices to use the same frequency channel to carry on multiple concurrent 'conversations'.

DJ's odd commentary isn't wholly without relevance to the issues of interference -- these technologies in general are intended to deal with interference and with heavy usage of limited frequency bandwidth, and will certainly apply to the newly-opened whitespace. But "Andy" makes no mention of these technologies, nor does he refer anyplace to "frequency hopping" (which CDMA/OFDMA/etc are NOT).

As a sound mixer who regularly relies on wireless microphones to bring all of you your television programming I think you folks have no idea of the true implications of this ruling. Television Production, Sports, Conventions, Theaters, Stage, Churches of Worship, etc etc, rely on hundreds of thousands of existing RF microphones to bring you uninterruped programing. I think we are in for lots of bad sound and interferrence. Momentary splats, buzzes and other crap constantly intruding into your life.

Sorry, I see now that Andy does actually refer to "frequency hopping" in his follow-up post. This makes DJ's comments much more relevant than I first believed.

As to the problems of interference in real-world circumstances, I too can attest to the difficulties of the problem. But it's never wholly intractable (unless it's deliberate or a a matter of human as opposed to technological conflict). I remain confident that such problems are dwarfed by the advantages.

First of all I do not have the ability to erase anyone's comments--that is the purview of the Fierce editors--see above

EE--you need to do your home work--for YEARS the
Police, fire, and other two-way radio users have been using TV spectrum on a shared basis in major cites--lets start with LA, San Fran, Chicago, New York and others, these systems have been licensed in order to provide additional spectrum to these sgencies who do not have enough.
And for Joseph--I am not in favor of letting this spectrum be fallow, I am, however, in favor of it being licensed--not for money or auctions but for accountability when there is an interference issue-and it is also interesting to me that most of you who are taking a negative view of what I am saying are those who seem to believe that broadband services should be free and unregulated. Spectrum is a finite resource and it has to be managed, not just used--
There are other comments I want to address but I will do so in my next posting.

Oh, OK, so now you're making sense. You want accountability. That is not an unreasonable request; but it might have been better placed in your article.

That said, you probably just wanted a shocking headline and article to get more viewers. Well, the comments show you that you got more than you bargained for. Enjoy it, viewership is a double-edged sword if you cheat for it. You deserved it, frankly.

According to the first report & order, and statements made this week by the committee members, the FCC has specified that the new devices will be required to have 2 mechanisms to prevent causing interference. These are new cognitive mechanisms that protect incumbents much more than any other radio technology that has been employed in the past.

The first is geolocation awareness along with FCC database access, and the second is sensing of the spectrum to detect TV broadcasts.

The FCC database defines the exact location and contour of the TV signal for every legal TV transmitter in the US, and thus defines the legal limit of these signals. A smart device that calculates the limits of its own device and knows its own location will be able to (and will be required to by FCC ruling) avoid using channels whose coverage area overlaps with the TV transmitter coverage area.

The addition of sensing as well will be an extra check which could perhaps cover cases such as where the database may not be up to date or accurate.

Under these conditions, it is very unlikely that TV receivers that are within the area defined by the FCC will be affected.

Indeed, the FCC's effort to render this change harmless to existing TV signals -- and incidentally to licensees such as the municipalities that so concern Mr. Seybold -- is worthy of note, and it's something else he fails even to acknowledge in this article.

While regulations with respect to devices will doubtless be effective, it's still virtually certain that rogue devices and users will also emerge.

I'm inclined to agree therefore, but in a very qualified way, with some of Seybold's concerns. It seems likely that existing systems will need to become more resistant/tolerant of interference.

As for wireless mics? C'est la vie. Such relatively minor and non-licensed use can't rationally be protected in the face of such a huge initiative. I can think of no reason wireless mics can't be redesigned to conform to the FCC's specs and to use protocols that handle the electromagnetic environment gracefully.

The very idea that stage- tv- and media-production entities that commonly spend several thousand dollars each just for the lenses on their cameras can't afford a few hundreds each for bulletproof new microphones. I'll bet they're on the drawing boards, if not the shelves, this very minute.

Hello,
I am a independent sound mixer also. It is going to cost me over $10.000 to re-tool,(retool items that currently work perfectly) and it will take me years of rentals to make up the cost of buying this new equipment...and it currently seems impossible to know what equipment to retool to... and also the financial loss is possibly going to be even larger as all the new technology resolves all its conflicts... I am all for advancements, but everyone should realize that the white spaces effect people in all different ways.....And it is going to be interesting if wireless mics arent going to be reliable for a while......I use them everyday, and they are used on almost every television and movie you see......but I seriously wouldnt expect anyone to be aware of it unless you were in in the business I am.....
Honestly I am a little scared/and excited about the white space future.....maybe it will be better for my workflow.....maybe it will be better for the public.....all I know currently is the decision does directly screw with me paying my mortgage....
Good discussion all.....

We are in for interesting times. Having worked in the entertainment industry for over 30 years, I have watched wireless communications become critically important to events of all sizes. From elementary school musicals to Nascar races and NFL games, wireless communication has been allowed to become one of the cornerstones of an event's success and safe execution.

In a worst-case scenario, plan to show up very early to any event you hope to attend. It could take a few hours to get in, with all of the searches necessary in order to remove these new wireless devices from a few thousand people's pockets.

It is unfortunate that the FCC has noted frequency sensing and geolocation as saving technologies. When these were tested at a NFL preseason game earlier this year, they failed.

It seems that the FCC has decided to trust companies with dollar-signs in their eyes to work out the interference problems . . . Windows Vista was perfect when it was first released after all.

Wireless microphones are $1000's not $100's for what is used at a professional level and many are owned by indepedents, not just big media companies.

It's interesting to see the comments of the media pros on this subject. No question about it, there will be costs, some of them unpredicted and/or for which the 'victims' are ill prepared.

I will say I remain firmly optimistic that the 'freeing' of the whitespace will have been a positive development in the big picture.

It certainly doesn't make me smile to hear what it will cost the independent sound guy.

My contacts with that industry have been spotty, but I have seen a good deal of the equipment on occasion, and have some clues as to its costs. One system I saw had numerous mics monitored by a single receiver. I'm not really surprised if some high-end wireless mics were to cost over $1000 but it would surprise me if it were in the multiple thousands per solo device.

I'm not sure I understand what the failure was at that NFL game. How was it established that the FCC's measures weren't working, and what were the consequences?

>>> I'm not really surprised if some high-end wireless mics were to cost over $1000 but it would surprise me if it were in the multiple thousands per solo device.<<<

Well...I hate to break the news to you but the type of professional RF mic transmitters and receivers that we use on movies, tv, and sporting events cost between $2500 and $3000 PER SYSTEM. I work as a freelance sound mixer for shows like Dateline, 60 Minutes and for many other lesser programs. I have to own and maintain a minimum of at least 6 of these systems just to hang my shingle out and make $35.00 per hour. The networks make us throw in at least two of them with our $75 per day equipment rate and pay about $40 to 50 each per day for additional RF mics. As you can see...it takes us many years to break even on these systems. I personally have about $30,000 wrapped up in my wireless microphones and net about $50,000 per year working as a freelance sound mixer. If I have to repurchase some new as yet unannounced RF devices to replace these it's going to a major financial disaster. I am not alone. As another poster said...you have no idea how much of your entertainment, news viewing and other areas of your life are dependent on wireless microphones. They are everywhere from the types of shows I mentioned to the drive up window at your favorite fast food restaurant. I can tell you if a GSM cell phone is near my RF mics because they misbehave....this is gonna be a disaster. If RF were in the visible spectrum we'd all be blind!

It is already costing some thousands to tens of thousands because of the loss of the 700mhz ruling ":

The FCC, just this month, passed a new ruling that had only been proposed recently by the Chairman of the FCC. This ruling bans the use of any wireless microphone (licensed or not) above 700 MHz after the DTV transition in February 2009. This directly involves parts of block 27, and all of blocks 28 and 29. Block 27 can still be used below 700MHz (switch settings 0,0 to 5,7) - an 8.8Mhz passband."

Not only are people buying new gear to correct that issue. They may have to rebuy again, and again, and again, as new policies keep arising.......Might be destructive for many peoples wallet... ************** There should be a major tax write off for people who will suffer while the fcc experiments......************

I guess all those people/organizations who will be #@#!! are just collateral damage.

Never Mind the Bullocks !

Free Broadband for Rural America !

Now !

@ ArtDecoDalek

How's that Google Kool-Aid taste?

Don't interpret this as a partisan expression on my part, but...

www[dot]mediaaccess[dot]org/press-room/?c=releases

This tells me that the wireless mic situation is at least in part a result of the commercial exploit of a gray-zone of FCC regulation. A zone that's now turning "white", one might say.

I have no lack of empathy for the businesses and projects that may suffer. Hopefully the FCC will work things out without any gray zones whatsoever, so that everyone gets along.

I'm inclined to fault the FCC most of all, for its lack of action as well as for lax enforcement of existing rules.

But the last to suffer will be the manufacturers of the equipment. They only gain by a forced re-tooling.

Yet, as I see it, none of this makes the "freeing" of the white spaces any less of a good idea. However I suspect the success of the move may depend in significant part on the FCC changing its pattern of lax enforcement; which is far from assured.

Obama's planned new appointment of the FCC chief is no comfort; it appears he's doing that for purposes of an unrelated agenda; to wit, the re-instatement of the Fairness Doctrine. It's not difficult to guess where enforcement efforts will be directed if that effort succeeds. And given current economics, one must doubt they'll expand upon enforcement resources.

The actual second report and order is not yet published, so the details of the ruling are not clear. But I believe that the FCC will include provision for "beacons" to be deployed where wireless microphones are in use, so WS devices avoid those frequencies. If so those who own wireless microphones may be able to buy a beacon device rather than replace their entire equipment inventory.

Yes in fact there is a potential problem with interference. Years ago ham radio operators interfered with the TV reception, this problem was resolved as it will be with wireless internet use. As for the statement "competition in broadband is already here", boy did you miss the mark there. I live in the fourth larges county in the USA and most of the small towns in this area have dialup only. Even in town average cost $45. for service.

Does anyone know if the White Spaces Database Study/Work Group still open? We, as a small company working in this area would very much like to join and contribute to any work necessary to make this happen.

Anyone knew if this group still exists and how we can join the effort?

Thanks very much in advance...Mimi