10 ms·
Yeah that's not a strong argument at all. The 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are known widely as "garbage bands" due to how terrible they are to work with (e.g. rain wil
by awalton 9y ago
Yeah that's not a strong argument at all. The 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands are known widely as "garbage bands" due to how terrible they are to work with (e.g. rain will heavily attenuate your signal, they're literally how microwaves work to cook your food, etc.).
Moreover, there are plenty of radios on the market that transmit all kinds of noise on these channels that isn't WiFi (e.g. my neighbors had a baby monitor that I could tell when it was on by how shit my WiFi was at that moment, FPV drones somewhat frequently use this band with proprietary analog video transports, etc.) This is permitted because these channels are "unregulated" (or, more realistically, "regulated for unlicensed operation").
On top of that, the FCC's official statement on this very topic was that what they really care about is the amount of power being put into these channels, as some aftermarket router firmwares of varying repute would let you crank the output wattage above FCC regulations for these frequencies (<1W power to stay within unlicensed operation regulations for 2.4GHz), and apparently some in-market WiFi routers picked up those firmwares as a "supported" option (I think ASUS and Linksys were both named). Most of these routers have since patched themselves to stay regulation-safe.
So, go nuts, just stay below 30 dBm/1W from the transmitter in 2.4Ghz channels or prepare for a visit from the FCC. (You'll have to do your own research for 5GHz).
- exikyut 9y agoDoes this mean the 3W and 5W amplified Wi-Fi dongles all over ebay aren't actually legal? :( I realize they're probably terrible quality, and that they're really just Wi-Fi dongles with amplifiers tacked on, and that overly loud signal amplification destroys close range performance - but still, I'd been meaning to get a couple of these and see how good they are.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- paulie_a 9y agoPlease don't
- colanderman 9y agoThe limits in the 2.4 GHz range are 1 W maximum emitted power, amplified via directed antenna up to 4 W maximum. (5 GHz has more complex rules, but is generally more restrictive of emitted power and less restrictive of directed amplification.) Not sure what these dongles are so I can't comment on them specifically.
- exikyut 9y agoI see. So This 5MW one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/171907612288 https://www.ebay.com/itm/171907612288 And this 5.8MW one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/222605454974 https://www.ebay.com/itm/222605454974 And this 6MW one: https://www.ebay.com/itm/171907483813 https://www.ebay.com/itm/171907483813 Are all 2.4GHz. And I probably shouldn't really use any of them then. :/
- colanderman 9y agoIf you are using them in the US to transmit at their full power in a point-to-multipoint system, they are not legal. They would be legal for a point-to-point setup, since they achieve their high EIRP due to high antenna gain (as opposed to high output power). But also due to that high gain, they're not really useful for anything but point-to-point (think backhaul between buildings). You could also use them legally and usefully as a client (pointed at an AP) if you turn the power down so that the EIRP is 4 W (36 dB). You'd still benefit from the high antenna gain in the receiving direction (though not in the transmitting direction, which includes TCP ACKs).
- oasisbob 9y agoWasn't the other big issue that motivated the FCC the devices which ignored / broke DFS [1], and the use of disallowed channels (eg, 12-14 in North America) Interfering with licensed radar installations would seem to be a legitimate problem. [1] http://www.ieee802.org/18/Meeting_documents/2007_Nov/WFA-DFS-Best%20Practices.pdf http://www.ieee802.org/18/Meeting_documents/2007_Nov/WFA-DFS...
- westbywest 9y agoTo its credit, OpenWRT/LEDE community implemented DFS per the requirements they were able to glean from regulatory bodies. Open firmware can indeed be hacked to operate against its authors' wishes, but as other comments indicate, closed firmware isn't inherently immune to the same exploitation. https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/dfs https://openwrt.org/docs/techref/dfs