NFL, ESPN Offer to Kick Off White-Spaces Testing
NFL, ESPN renew offer to let FCC test unlicensed wireless devices under real-world conditions of 2008-09 football season.
By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 6/26/2008 10:33:00 AM
The National Football League and ESPN renewed their offer to let the Federal Communications Commission test unlicensed wireless devices under the real-world conditions of the 2008-09 football season, while a pair of legislators is calling for field tests, as well.
The FCC has been testing the devices, which would use the so-called white spaces between digital-TV channels, at its Maryland lab and indicated that it will take those tests out into the field soon. ESPN and the NFL want that field to be a gridiron.
Sports leagues and producers are concerned that the devices will interfere with the microphones and other wireless equipment that they say are "not a convenience but a necessity" to their coverage of the games.
In comments filed with the commission, they offered to make the tests as convenient as possible by suggesting that they could be conducted at nearby M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens, or FedExField, home to the Washington Redskins. With the preseason only six weeks away, "these field tests could be scheduled to take place very soon," they argued.
Broadcasters and microphone users, including churches and Broadway theaters, have been fighting hard against allowing unlicensed mobile devices like laptops and spectrum-sensing radios to share the TV band without assurances that they will not interfere with those beautiful DTV pictures they are shifting to in February 2009 -- assurances broadcasters argued are next to impossible to supply given the unlicensed nature of the devices.
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Are these wireless microphones the Low Power Auxiliary Devices authorized by 74.832? Are churches and Broadway theaters elegible for licensing? I'm guessing the NFL qualifies as a television program producer. Otherwise, under what FCC rule are wireless microphones authorized to operate in the TV broadcast band?
Harold Hallikainen - 6/30/2008 9:09:00 AM EDT -
What would happen if mobile devices are allowed to use white space and every cable truck in the nation just happened to have one of those devices on board during regular truck rolls? And let's say some fraction of on-board usages generates an interference field. Do you think the antenna-dependents on the block, or cable subs who drop second set hookups in favor of OTA, might get the idea that OTA broadcast DTV is unreliable? Interesting question. MSTV is fighting tooth and nail to prevent white space usage, as it should. But it also should demand that the FCC police the airwaves to deter interference from any source. Organizations found to cause interference on a regular basis should be subject to stiff fines.
Adam Smith - 6/28/2008 2:39:00 AM EDT
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