> "Unlicensed" isn't really "unlicensed", as much as specifically licensed for anyone to do with as they please. One does not need a license to operate a radio

> "Unlicensed" isn't really "unlicensed", as much as specifically licensed for anyone to do with as they please. One does not need a license to operate a radio in the WiFi bands, so that spectrum is unlicensed. However, it is not unregulated. :) > Anecdotes: 1: on London Underground, my phone authenticates using the SIM somehow... That might be EAP-SIM [0]. EAP (and WPA2-EAP) is really cool. I really wish that MSFT would configure their WiFi supplicants to not care if the key of the PEAP or TTLS server they're talking to is signed by an unknown CA. This would let coffee shop owners deploy encrypted but password-less WiFi and shut down a whole class of attacks. [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Protocol#EAP-SIM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Authentication_Prot... [1] Seriously, MSFT obviously designed their WPA2-EAP GUIs only for use in an enterprise environment. There's no way for a Windows user to connect to a WPA2-EAP network that uses PEAP or TTLS with a cert from an unknown CA by just clicking on the network in the network browser and punching in some credentials. You must manually configure the network, then uncheck a checkbox buried beneath a couple of menus. What's more, the error you get if you don't do this is entirely unhelpful. :/ In contrast, Apple's GUI for this is actually useful: "This cert is unknown. You want to trust it for this WiFi network?". Say yes and off you go!