History will be made at the upcoming Democratic and Republican National Conventions—if not by the candidates, then possibly by engineers testing white space devices in the RF-rich environments.
The FCC is in the midst of conducting tests of technologies that operate in the white spaces of DTV spectrum, and the conventions will be full of carefully coordinated wireless mics and other users, according to a letter to the FCC from Louis Libin, president of Broadcomm Inc. and chairman of PolComm2008, the entity charged with RF coordination for the conventions.
“We believe these experimental tests would provide valuable information for the FCC, broadcasters and the wireless industry,” Libin wrote. “It would provide a real experiment during an event that employs hundreds of wireless microphones and frequencies.”
To eliminate the risk of interference during a defining moment in American political history, the experiments would not run at key times of the conventions.
The Democratic National Convention runs Aug. 25-28 in Denver. The Republican National Convention runs Sept. 1-4 in St. Paul. Minn.
