Shure warns 1350-1400 MHz offers PMSE users just 5 MHz in places

Wireless microphone maker Shure has told a CEPT workshop in Copenhagen that the 1350-1400 MHz band, long floated as a replacement home for programme making and special events (PMSE) users, could shrink to as little as 5 MHz of usable spectrum in some areas.

The claim goes to the heart of a live European spectrum debate. PMSE shares the UHF band, 470-694 MHz, with digital terrestrial television (DTT) as a primary user. That protection runs until 2030. What happens after — and who gets into the band next — is now the subject of intense argument among regulators, broadcasters and the mobile industry.

Wolfgang Bilz of Shure set out the problem in plain terms at the CEPT workshop on the future of the 470-694 MHz band, held in Copenhagen last month. The 1350-1400 MHz band looks generous on paper, spanning 50 MHz. In practice, he said, most of it is already spoken for.

"25 MHz of that spectrum is used by different kinds of radar systems, including military radar," Bilz said. "There are military drones in there, which are always on the move so we don't know where they are. The rest is used in some countries for fixed links."

Why the band matters for UHF's future

Two workstreams are running in parallel at CEPT, the European Conference of Postal and Telecommunications Administrations. Its FM51 working group is building a regulatory "toolbox" that would let individual member states admit IMT mobile users into the UHF band. Mobile operators want that access to improve rural coverage.

At the same time, FM51 is seeking to harmonise 1350-1400 MHz, where wireless microphones currently hold only a secondary allocation. A meeting in Berlin in September revealed a catch: harmonisation would remain voluntary for national administrations.

Manufacturers including Shure and Sennheiser, together with industry group APWPT, argue that any further users in UHF would expose the PMSE sector to serious interference. That is why the quality of the fallback band matters so much.

Bilz warned that the 50 MHz could easily "go down to 5 MHz in some areas", at which point "it might not be high value". Rather than rely on 1350-1400 MHz alone, he supports pairing it with 960-1164 MHz, a band set to be licensed for indoor use only and in coordinated situations.

"960-1164 MHz is also a global band, but is a political issue," he said. "For me, targeting both bands is a good way forward."

Could short-term licensing be a solution?

Some speakers at the workshop pointed to the US special temporary authority (STA) regime, which grants spectrum licences for limited periods around specific events, as a possible model.

Franz Ziegelwanger of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Housing, Arts, Culture, Media and Sport noted that 600 MHz in the US is already used in this flexible, short-term way. "Perhaps we should look a little bit at our framework in that way," he said. "There should be flexibility on all sides and we should look for common solutions."

The US experience drew sharp pushback from the PMSE side. Vaughan John of the APWPT argued that the equipment typically used under short-term access licences in the US is gradually failing, while regulation blocks spectrum from being used for newer kit that could otherwise be sold.

"At the moment, events in the US are being constrained, and it's going to get worse," John said. He pointed out that the US made 1435-1525 MHz available — a big chunk of spectrum that is itself shared for audio PMSE — but concluded that "even that is likely not going to be enough" and that "they're going to be in a bad place as time goes on".

Victor Lang, a PMSE coordinator who uses the US mechanisms frequently, was blunter still.

"Saying that the US is working for 470-608 MHz is a direct lie," he said. "Everyone uses STAs for all events to make them happen."

"You cannot get much wireless for an event like the Super Bowl," he added. "If you ask for 20 MHz, you get 10 MHz" — and the expectation, he said, is that the spectrum coordinator must simply "figure it out".

For Europe's PMSE community, the message to CEPT is that a voluntary harmonisation of a radar-crowded band is no substitute for the UHF spectrum it stands to lose. With UHF protection running only until 2030, FM51's toolbox decisions in the coming months will determine whether wireless microphone users get a landing zone that actually works.