Access to radio frequencies for wireless microphones

Digital Dividend in Norway

The last 10 years has seen the Professional Audio industry in Europe go through some very difficult challenges, specifically in the area of spectrum access. These changes have put a lot of pressure and uncertainty into the market, and unfortunately have also occurred at a time when so many other factors have aligned, resulting in trading conditions being even more challenging than normal.

The Norwegian Government has announced that they intend to clear the 700 MHz band by 1st November 2019, trigger a so-called Digital Dividend 2 in the country. The Digital Dividend was introduced in several different stages: Stage I (2013) included frequency 790-862 MHz and 838 – 862 MHz; stage II (2019) includes mainly frequency 694 – 790 MHz. In general, virtually all wireless microphone applications are affected by these changes.

The legal position in Norway

The countries of the European Union have agreed on a general harmonization of frequency use – to the benefit of unified communication standards for the technologies in question.

A national authority is responsible for coordinating the frequency range and setting up regulations for efficient, interruption-free use in each country. In Norway, this is Norwegian Communications Authority ( Nkom )

Norwegian Communications Authority
Nasjonal kommunikasjons-myndighet
(NKOM)

Visiting address
Nygård 1, Lillesand

Postal address
Postbox 93
4791 Lillesand
Norway
Phone: +47 22 82 46 00

Emergency response
Fax: +47 22 82 46 40
[email protected]
Nkom

Distinguishing between user groups

The Norwegian Television (NTV) granted the right to use the frequency band 470 - 790 MHz to establish a public electronic communication network based on digital TV (DTT) technology. This is a primary service in this band. In the freeboard regulations section 14 first paragraph/letter b Nkom has granted permission to use wireless microphones as secondary service in the frequency band 510 - 790 MHz with maximum permitted radiated power of 50 mW e.r.p.
Nkom thus splits radio technology applications for audio transmission into two user groups: Professional applications with protection areas appropriate to their level of importance and those with low protection needs.

Although wireless microphones and in-ear systems are crucially important in producing large live events and radio formats, they are always considered secondary to television signals and therefore handled as subordinate. That means that the unused gaps in the frequency spectrum between the TV channels are used for transmission.