Professional sports leagues concerned about white space spectrum
As expected, more groups are coming forward to voice their concern over unlicensed white space spectrum. The National Football League, Major League Baseball, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League, the National Collegiate Athletic Association, the PGA Tour, and ESPN have asked the FCC to ensure that it protects wireless microphones from interference from unlicensed devices operating in white-space spectrum.
In their joint filing, the leagues and ESPN--as members of the Sports Technology Alliance--assert that the FCC must require the technology companies that want to sell wireless white spaces devices to prove that their devices won't interfere with wireless microphones, which already operate in white spaces.
Last week hospital technology groups and vendors in the sector urged the FCC to be careful on how it approaches the white-space spectrum issue because opening up some of those channels could lead to interference with medical devices. And the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) fiercely opposes unlicensed devices in white-space spectrum because of interference concerns with digital TV signals. CTIA wants white spaces auctioned.
For more about Sports Technology Alliance's concern over white spaces:
- check out this release
Related articles:
- White-space broadband gets more and more complicated
- Hospitals worry about white-space spectrum interference
- CTIA weighs in on white spaces issue
- Google steps up white spaces efforts
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By Michael Marcus | Posted 6:29pm | May 5, 2008
The multibillion dollar sports leagues seek to perpetuate their cost free use of spectrum using obsolescent FM FDMA technology. (Remember the first generation cellular system? The same technolog but without frequency reuse.) This is wildly inconsistent with the past decade or so of spectrum policy in the US. Even the neighborhood taxi is transitioning away from this radio technology due to "refarming". Cost free commercial spectrum access is an endangered species for most industries, many of which have fewer resources than the sports leagues.
My FCC filing today in Docket 04-186
addresses in more detail the PR campaign of the sports leagues and gives alternatives.
Yes, both a reasonable transition plan and a long term plan for wireless microphone use are needed to avoid program disruption. But this does not require permanent preservation of the status quo. The existing mode of wireless microphone use guarantees inefficient use of a valuable spectrum resource throughout the whole country. While that may be good for the narrow base of users, it is bad for the economy as a whole to give them such preferential access.
The UK's spectrum regulator, Ofcom, is taking bold steps in this area (called PMSE in UK jargon). FCC has been strangely silent, even still allowing wireless microphone use without sun set in the 700 MHz spectrum recently auctioned. For that matter, FCC even allows wireless microphone use in public safety spectrum due to an apparent oversight in its rules!