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calvoiper
join:2003-03-31
Belvedere Tiburon, CA
| reply to Eat Me
Re: Well
said by Eat Me  :
Now, if the FCC would grant licenses and regulate 802.11 properly, maybe it could be better. The way I would like to see it is that ....
Yeah, like they way they granted licenses for PCS? First, they split the spectrum in completely nonsensical ways. Second, they prohibited initial "nationwide" license acquisition, guaranteeing service fragmentation. Third, they experimented with new "auction" schemes willy-nilly. Fourth, they managed to sell licenses to financially incapable entities which tied up the frequencies for years in litigation. Finally, they admitted to creating a sinkhole in the US Treasury and looked for a bailout--in which the benefit to the consumer was the last consideration. And who benefitted from this? Only the incumbent cellular duopolies, who saw meaningful competition delayed by years. The whole thing was run like a bad psychology experiment for a high-school science fair.
That could be done. (Of course, it would be predated by 1.5 years of arguing over whether the way you "would like to see it happen" is better than the way, say, Verizon "would like to see it happen....")
No, thank you. I'll take the "Wild West" of the present Wi-Fi approach instead, and keep those meddlesome bureaucrats out of the pipeline.
Calvoiper
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Eat Me
join:2002-09-25
Sussex, NJ
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| reply to tomkb
It's not an unregulated band. There are actually other legit users of the band around. 802.11 falls under FCC Part 15 rules, which means that all users are allowed only limited power, and can use the band on a secondary basis.
Now, if the FCC would grant licenses and regulate 802.11 properly, maybe it could be better. The way I would like to see it is that the channels that are outside of the ham radio 2.4GHz band can be for commercial use, and those that are in the ham radio band can be for regular non-commercial ham radio use, under part 97. The FCC should also do away with the requirement to have all data sent over ham radio 802.11 sent in cleartext (unencyrpted). These rules would apply for higher powered transmitters (more than 1 watt) and high gain antennas.
This way, anyone wanting to do 802.11 as a hobby would have to get a very easy to obtain and free ham radio license. And it would mean that any corporation wanting to do 802.11 would stay out of the noncommercial ham radio band. | |
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