Sunday, November 16, 2008
FCC Puts Screws to Live Event Audio Industry
FOH online: "OH has been at the forefront of fighting the white space battle with the FCC for almost two years. We received word that the Federal Communications Commission followed the money and voted to allow technology companies like Google, Microsoft, Dell and Motorola to produce consumer devices that will use radio frequency (RF) spectrum now being used by wireless microphone systems. The decision comes despite objections from FCC engineers and the 100% failure rate of prototype devices in “real world” tests."
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7 comments:
Yep indeed, this sucks. Though in the grand scheme of things, we think it sucks because we are the ones being negatively affected. Although wireless microphones are a major part of the live entertainment industry, the potential gains for the telecom companies is enormous. In a lot of ways the FCC has just squished the little guy here by allowing large corporations to do what they want while we suffer.
Well, looks like the FCC just gave the finger to the public once again. On on is allowed to complain about bad sound on wireless mics now, that's the rule I just made up. Have fun with our spectrum google.
The FCC did this for the money. They just want to keep getting their kickbacks... Bastards. Maybe in the next couple of years Obama will be able to help us out of this mess. He at least cares about arts and entertainment.
And I don't think we can expect any money from the gov. to help with the purchasing of new equip. They just gave all the money to bail out the banks. And where is that money going??? To pay for the golden parachutes to the people who helped get the country in to this economic crisis... hhhmmmmm.. Are we boned? Yeah, we're boned.
This does suck, but it'll be funny when google, motorola, or whatever has there spring industrial in March, and it blows cuz there new apps keep screwing with the system.
This could really make listening to live events rather unpleasurable... I hope that when Microsoft or Google unveil any new products using the new frequencies, they don't remember to check if the wireless mics they are using in the room use the same frequencies...
I feel like now everything will be affected by this and products will interfere with each other all the time. Overall I think this was an awful idea. Now pretty much everyone has to worry and or modify their stuff so that it can work effectively without significant interference. Maybe we will have an electronic depression.
While I don't know much about the science behind this, I think that the article makes it seem that the FCC ignored valid opinions and framed the issue in a biased manner against the live entertainment industry. I think that while it was never really ours to begin with, we should have some enforced squatters rights.
Also, wouldn't this effect larger events (not just theater)? Don't sports teams use wireless communication systems? and what about the large olympic-like events which will also be affected. Maybe one of these groups will have the clout to fix this mess.
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