Big Sport On White Space: Won’t Somebody Think Of The Wireless Headphones!
Duncan Riley
22 comments »
Big sport has come out against Google’s WiFi 2.0 plan by arguing that use of white space spectrum will cripple sporting events by interfering with wireless headphones.
The Sport Technology Alliance, representing 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 is calling on the FCC to require that technology companies wanting to sell wireless whitespaces devices to prove that their devices don’t interfere with wireless headphones (wireless headphones already operate in white spaces). Ken Kerschbaumer, executive director of the Sports Video Group made the following colorful argument:
We are deeply troubled by the crippling disruption and harm that portable devices will cause to live sports events. These devices could knock out wireless communications systems like headsets used by coaches and officials, microphones used by referees to announce penalties and calls, and microphones used by journalists to conduct interviews with athletes and coaches...Any interference caused by wireless white spaces devices would seriously impair US sports event programming, affecting hundreds of millions of sports fans – denying them full enjoyment of these events. Without a doubt, sports fans will be the real losers here if the FCC fails to protect wireless microphones.
The group specifically targeted Google’s proposal, arguing that it is flawed as the plan would place the burden on existing wireless microphone users, requiring them to purchase and install “beacons” which would jam white space device transmissions.
Gee, it’s almost sounds like something a telecom lobbyist would write…
sorry
hi Dave
Broadway theaters are also against this as it would disrupt their actors’ wireless microphones.
Surely each pro-sports team (and Broadway theater) will just have to get their own Google Account and everything will work seamlessly. AND the coaches will have a direct line to GOOG-411. Probably.
Oh, I get it. One minute you’re calling in a play to your quarterback, the next minute Dave Winer is in your ear talking crap. They’re right, that would be pretty frustrating. Good point, well made.
So they all want to remain on their proprietary island of communication.
Classic! No wonder they’re spooked by the Patriots!
Someone surely must have put them up to this!
Like they don’t have the bucks to implement new technology on
the open access/open development spectrum.
These bone heads don’t understand the new world of collaboration.
It’s one thing to raise a flag and heighten awareness, it’s another to “call upon the FCC” to regulate new technology on behalf of the fans before it’s created and tested! Rather Disingenious…
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Hassled by arrington
Hey Chris!
Irrelevant
Hey Dennis! Saw you on Geary St. after the VentureBeat party! Sorry I couldn’t “spare some change”. Had I known it was you…
In text comments no one knows if you’re a man of a woman. In seesmic comments no one knows if you’re wearing any pants.
@ 14
Agreed !!! Hahaha
So I hear that the guy that works on our copy machine just bought new shoes.
I’m sorry, where am I? I need a webcam to go that far off topic, huh?
(It’s okay, Duncan, *I* read your post.)
Perhaps then the people who rely on using everyone’s spectrum for critical entertainment-related communications should bid in the next auction.
I’m with Jeff. This wireless-headphones ruse is the most specious, frivolous pissant mini-turd of an excuse I’ve ever heard for opposing a plan for wide-ranging wireless internet I’ve ever heard of.
Combine this with the news I’ve been reading about the failure of municipal wi-fi around the country, and it’s easy to come to the conclusion that some people just don’t like the idea of unfettered internet access . . . or the internet . . . and they’re the ones in charge.
Seems obvious to me they are using this as an excuse to prevent people with connected devices to transmit information/video/audio etc. live from the event.
The multibilion dollar sports leagues would like to perpetuate their present cost free access to “beach front” spectrum with obsolescent FM FDMA technology. They don’t care they their access may deny other uses that may be more valuable and that they may have other options consistent with the general US policy that commercial spectrum access should be paid for.
Instead of hiring techies to look at options using contemporary technology, they are hiring PR firms to protect their vested interests in free spectrum access with dated technology. In the UK market, Sony sell more efficient digital wireless mic technology, why don’t the US sports leagues want it? Microcells and picocells work for cellular, why won’t they work for these uses?
See my FCC filing today in Docket 04-186 or my blog, SpectrumTalk, for more details.