Thursday, September 4, 2008

FCC Acts on Potential Interference Issues

The Federal Communications Commission has ordered a freeze on the granting of any equipment authorization requests for wireless microphones that would operate in any of the 700 MHz Band frequencies. In addition, the FCC is considering a ban on any wireless microphones operating in the space. The issue, as often is the case for licensed spectrum holders or prospective holders, is signal interference.

The spectrum in question is in the over-the-air band corresponding to broadcast channels 2 through 51, which will be converting to digital broadcasting next February 2009. To avoid local interference with broadcast TV signals, wireless microphones would be restricted to the guard bands between each of the 6-MHz channels.

Many of you who attend conferences might have discovered that Research in Motion BlackBerries cause significant interference with wireless microphones, enough so that audiovisual personnel always will ask for speaker or panelist BlackBerries to be turned off. Potential interference also has been an issue with various tests of "white spaces" between TV channels as well.

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