Imagine trying to pay attention to your teacher but being distracted -- not by the warm breeze coming in from the window but by bursts of static, police radios or walkie talkies.
If you're a child with a hearing loss using an Assistive Listening Device -- also known as an FM system or an ALD -- this scenario could easily be a regular classroom experience.
That is, unless Congress alters rules regarding the FCC's auctioning of certain bands of the radio spectrum.
Approximately 28 million Americans of all ages experience some degree of hearing loss; of these, more than six million use hearing aids or cochlear implants (CIs), according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders.
But hearing aids and cochlear implants have their limitations -- they are less useful over distance or in situations where there is significant background noise. Since classrooms can have poor acoustics, many schoolchildren use ALDs, instead. (Adults also wear them in meetings, houses of worship and theaters).
To stop random signals -- such as the drive-in window of a local McDonald's that one child heard -- a number of hearing aid and ALD manufacturers approached the FCC to open up a new spectrum.
In 1996, the FCC authorized the use of the 216-217 MHz for ALDs, because that portion of the spectrum was sparsely used.
But a more recent directive from Congress authorized the FCC to reallocate by auction some bands of the radio spectrum, inadvertently -- some say -- including 216-217 MHz. If that happens, other wireless devices could wind up causing interference with classroom ALDs.
Senators Christopher J. Dodd (D-Connecticut), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Massachusetts) recently sent a letter to both the secretary of the U.S. Department of Commerce and the FCC chairman in support of ALD use of the spectrum.
"We want to assure the Commission that Congress did not intend for the reallocation of government spectrum to cause hardship to the public, and that we are adamant that there is no impairment of the benefit of ALDs to the twenty-eight million hard of hearing Americans," they wrote.
The sale of licenses in the 216-217 MHz band would infringe on the right of children to use ALDs in special education as guaranteed under federal law, advocates say.
"The FCC appears sympathetic to the problem but believes that its hands are tied, at least to some extent, by the statute that requires certain licenses to be awarded by auction," said Peter Tannenwald, 58, special legal counsel to the Hearing Industries Association (HIA), the trade association for manufacturers of hearing aids and ALDs.
But Tannenwald said that the FCC shouldn't feel conflicted about the issue.
"When you have two conflicting statutes, you should take the specific over the general, especially when it is obvious that the auction statute was not intended to impair the use of ALDs," he said.
The problem with ALDs, said John Flanders, children's rights advocate for the Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, is that they are very low power, subjecting them to interference from other radio sources. "In addition," said Flanders, "there is something about the band that allows the transmitters and receivers to be smaller and have smaller antennas. Because this allows the devices to be much less obtrusive, it makes them more palatable to children who don't want to stand out as different."
The loss of the spectrum would also result in significant monetary losses for cash-strapped schools, churches and civic groups. Most of these organizations have little funding to buy new systems. This is significant, because a new system has to be purchased if the bandwidth changes, since the ALD electronics are only for the specific bandwidth.
The FM systems consist of two parts: a small microphone with a radio transmitter and a receiver that works with hearing aids and CIs.
These personal FM systems cost an average of $2,000 and last about five years, according to Anastasia L. Heckendorf, an educational audiologist in Wisconsin.
"We are a very, very small priority in the grand scheme of Washington," said Dave Woodbury, 36, director of Government Relations for HIA. "Lobbying campaigns cost millions and millions of dollars, and we don't have that kind of funding to move ahead."
The ramifications of an auction won't be clear until it takes place. Once the auction occurs, however, the spectrum is gone. It is close to impossible, said Woodbury, for Congress to assign a new part of the spectrum to ALDs.
Danny Finnen, 12, is worried about all of this. "I hope that the government will reconsider their decision and realize that the well-being of kids shouldn't be sacrificed for money," he said.
"It's hard enough as it is, please don't take the necessary help I need away from me. I would be glad to speak personally to anyone in Congress. Maybe they don't understand just how important this help in communication means to a person who is hearing impaired."
