If you have been paying any attention to the analog frequency sell off conducted by the FCC, you will undoubtedly have noticed that Google is just moderately interested in the proceedings.
Google has for some time been working on getting itinerant device access to what is commonly known in the industry as RF white spaces. White Space refers to the valleys which exist between the Color, Picture and Sound spikes of analog television signals. (Typically an analog TV signal has a separate modulated RF signal for the Color, Picture and Sound, all three are received by the television and processed to complete the signal).
White Spaces are typically where the FCC allowed the use of itinerant low power RF transmitters for wireless microphones and Intercom systems. While TV broadcast signals are very powerful (typically 50k watts) for the most part you could hide a great deal of microphones in between the spikes. If you lived in the sticks, or just outside a major urban area, you could rely on finding some portion of the spectrum which was free of a TV channel. In heavily saturated urban areas - such as NYC- you relied on proximity effect hoping that as the microphone would be the stronger signal - locally- to the receiver. For the most part this usually worked out very well with only the occasional interference and then the dynamic compression circuits would kick in, minimizing the audience impact. In sections of the City, like Broadway, you also have to contend with wireless systems in adjacent theaters. The logistics are remarkable.
To this mix Google wants to add the mobile communications devices which would use access points placed within the remaining white space areas to facilitate Wifi\Wimax type 'local access'. The concern of many in the commercial market is the possible havoc this could causes to existing system and make overly complicated new installs. Google's answer is to institute a device awareness protocol which would recognize that at a device or devices are already in use and not transmit until clear. I would surmise that the withholding of transmission would only be until it could find a time slot to transmit. Live audio is a continuous stream - whether analog or digitized in the microphone - and does not allow for a momentary pause to allow other devices access to the frequency. As a compromise a few others have offered up a fixed licensing scheme but it has been met with minimal enthusiasm. As I no longer work in the event staging world this is a minimal concern, but for corporate\commercial installers this is an issue to keep a close eye on.
Two good articles which cover this story well are at
CTIA urges FCC to license -- and auction -- TV white spaces
http://www.rcrnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080327/FREE/120719096/1007
Google Proposal for 'Wi-Fi on Steroids'
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9901747-7.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-20
Inevitably the spectrum will be auctioned off and utilized for a mass consumer set of services. You may have to become accustomed to lower quality audio from you live performances or see the reemergence of old school wired, hands free microphones. okay that was a joke, sort of. It is clear that the tiny market of wireless audio systems will be overwhelmed by the tsunami of consumer traffic.
I touched on this in Issue 14 Volume 3 of the old newsletter (July of 07)
See http://tuckerstuesday.typepad.com/tuckerstuesday/2007/06/index.html for the original link and my commentary.
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