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Thursday, February 08, 2018
State Of The Union: The RF & Wireless System Picture Heading Into 2018
ProSoundWeb: One year ago, the U.S. pro audio industry was anxiously awaiting the impending outcome of the 600 MHz auction. We didn’t know much except that RF products operating in the 600 MHz band would likely be phased out over the next three years.
3 comments:
Sydney Asselin
said...
When the news about the 600 MHz auction from the FCC came out, many of us at my high school is worried. We had a set of Shure wireless receivers that were of the brand that could operate in the 600 MHz range. (Ours ended up operating somewhere in the 500 MHz range, but we were reasonably worried.) I am still angry that the FCC auctioned off what had previously free for the people's use to one of the most capitalistic type of companies there is: a phone service (T- Mobile). There are thousands of people and companies that had bought wireless microphones that operated in the 600 MHz range, spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on wireless systems that are now illegal to operate. That is a real problem. Our government needs to fund itself better-- through taxing those corporations that make exorbitant amounts of money-- instead of selling the frequencies that belong to the people to those corporations.
This was a huge issue for my highschool. With the FCC auctioning of the 600 MHz range our school lost all of our Shure wireless system in all of our preforming spaces. And of course it also perfectly aligned to when we lost our full array due to a bad power issue so we ended up having to replace every component of our sound system in one large chunk. The ability for the government to take something this free and democratic away from the people purely for a high price is stupid and is a real issue for those buying sound systems. Its silly and hard for the FCC to be able take away entire systems from people simply to turn a profit its the stupidest thing ever and i know personally that it can end up making people spend a lot of money that they never needed to spend in the first place.
It always surprises me how many areas seemingly unrelated to theatre can have such a powerful effect on our industry. When I first heard about the auction, was curious about what could be done to replace current equipment that will no longer be usable in the coming year. There are a few companies offering to take back equipment in exchange for small amounts of money, but nowhere near what something like a school of small church would need to replace it. I think this auction will hit hardest for the small organizations that simply don't have the reserves to replace an entire system, in some cases, even though it might be integral to their day to day or even week to week activity. The other number that I found really surprising was the fine for violating this new policy. There is so little room for error, especially, again, for smaller organizations that couldn't pay for a single frequency still being in the wrong place.
3 comments:
When the news about the 600 MHz auction from the FCC came out, many of us at my high school is worried. We had a set of Shure wireless receivers that were of the brand that could operate in the 600 MHz range. (Ours ended up operating somewhere in the 500 MHz range, but we were reasonably worried.) I am still angry that the FCC auctioned off what had previously free for the people's use to one of the most capitalistic type of companies there is: a phone service (T- Mobile). There are thousands of people and companies that had bought wireless microphones that operated in the 600 MHz range, spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on wireless systems that are now illegal to operate. That is a real problem. Our government needs to fund itself better-- through taxing those corporations that make exorbitant amounts of money-- instead of selling the frequencies that belong to the people to those corporations.
This was a huge issue for my highschool. With the FCC auctioning of the 600 MHz range our school lost all of our Shure wireless system in all of our preforming spaces. And of course it also perfectly aligned to when we lost our full array due to a bad power issue so we ended up having to replace every component of our sound system in one large chunk. The ability for the government to take something this free and democratic away from the people purely for a high price is stupid and is a real issue for those buying sound systems. Its silly and hard for the FCC to be able take away entire systems from people simply to turn a profit its the stupidest thing ever and i know personally that it can end up making people spend a lot of money that they never needed to spend in the first place.
It always surprises me how many areas seemingly unrelated to theatre can have such a powerful effect on our industry. When I first heard about the auction, was curious about what could be done to replace current equipment that will no longer be usable in the coming year. There are a few companies offering to take back equipment in exchange for small amounts of money, but nowhere near what something like a school of small church would need to replace it. I think this auction will hit hardest for the small organizations that simply don't have the reserves to replace an entire system, in some cases, even though it might be integral to their day to day or even week to week activity. The other number that I found really surprising was the fine for violating this new policy. There is so little room for error, especially, again, for smaller organizations that couldn't pay for a single frequency still being in the wrong place.
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