This article drops the ball on one major
point that set up this dumb situation in the first place: For over 40 years US wireless mic users never had to get licensed, unlike most other countries. Instead we just squatted in the white space between TV stations in whatever area we were in. So when Congress and the FCC came to reallocate the spectrum, who got helped? The TV stations who had been paying license fees for decades to the FCC and we got screwed because we had no influence since we were just squatters.
Elsewhere I've seen comments on the issue of "wild prices" being thrown around in this article. If, when this is all done, want the same
level of performance out of the new wireless mics that's comparable to what you were using before, it is going to cost a lot more per
channel than you paid in the past. To think otherwise is sticking your head in the sand, in all honesty.
On the professional rental side, the lower rate that we can offer a community theater for a weekend rental is based on the gear already being paid off and it not being out on something else that pays full price. If we have to replace 9/10ths of our RF inventory (transmitters, receivers, IEMs, wireless comm, antennas, antenna distros) that means that all of that gear won't be available at a discounted rental rate for some time. In addition a lot of our older gear will be turned in as part of the buyback rebate programs with manufacturers.
When the repack is done, not only will we be down the 600s for our use, but most of the 500s, upper 400s and even
VHF TV will be extremely tight, especially around most major cities. This is because all of the TV stations had to move somewhere too. So if we operate in the white space between stations, then there will be like 1/10th the white space there used to be in some markets.
Conventional analog doesn't have the audio quality for the limited spectrum. Unlicensed 1.9Ghz, 2.5GHz and 5.0GHz bands are already pretty crowded with consumer devices. For example, if you read the data sheet for most of the 2.4GHz wireless mics, you can fit AT MOST like 8 channels of mics in all of that spectrum and that's IF there is NOTHING ELSE using that spectrum. So you have to turn off WiFi in the theater. You have to get EVERY patron to turn off WiFi AND Bluetooth on their phones. Good luck with that.
In order to overcome this problem, you will need to go to digital transmitter and receiver sets, operating in the 480MHZ-608MHZ
UHF or the TV
VHF white space. These systems are, currently, significantly more expensive for the same audio quality you were used to. Many require entirely new antenna systems too. Even if you have like ULXD already, you will have significantly less
channel space available to you. You won't be doing 48 channels of ULXD in the NYC Metro Area, Dallas-Fort Worth, Greater LA or Chicagoland. In order to get that kind of
channel count, you'll have to go up to Axient or
Sennheiser 6000 series. The transmitter packs are a step backwards in size, range, battery life and durability.
Broadway houses where you have like 3
stage boxes backed up against each other, then a hotel conference center above, yet productions running up to 64 channels of mics, 16 channels of IEMs and like 16 wireless comm beltpacks EACH, which does not even dive into the mess of wireless
DMX, WiFi, assisted listening and interference from all sorts of other sources we used to be immune from. Where are we going to get this spectrum back from? We're not and the FCC doesn't care, cause we don't want to pay to license it. Instead we have to suck it up, buy new gear and hope they don't kill broadcast TV and Radio in the next 10-15 years.
So yeah, mics per
channel are going to be more expensive for most productions. T-Mobile is already testing 5G broadband data in the NYC area and plans to have this
system rolling out around here in time for the next round of hot new Smartphones hitting the market with 5G capabilities. Samsung Galaxy 9 already has it. T-Mobile is staking their future on this and is not pulling punches. They are trying to be fully built out BEFORE the final cut over date. The FCC is allowing T-Mobile to fire up their new transceivers within a week of the TV stations vacating the spectrum and there is going to be little warning. My day job's NY Broadway shows and tours on existing gear are already starting to take interference hits of giant sustained blasts of static where it was
clear spectrum the day before.
It's time that everyone realize that this time is way worse than the death of the 700MHz and start accepting that we're going to be in a bucket of suck for the next 5 to 10 years until this sorts itself out.