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Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks
- mvandermeulen 11mo agoThank you Europe?
- buddhistdude 11mo agoNo worries brother
- hk__2 11mo agoEU, not Europe.
- embedding-shape 11mo agoThe Register, being British, should probably have gotten this right, but people constantly get this wrong. Even a lot of people living in the union don't even realize the different between EU, Europe, EEA, Schengen and all the other layers, so maybe it's hard to blame "outsiders" from not getting it either. I'm guessing maybe the "European Commission" threw them off, because it's an EU entity (basically the executive branch), not "Europe wide" one, which the name kind of implies. But then "EU" also implies "Europe wide" in its name, and people seem to kind of get the difference most of the times.
- rsynnott 11mo agoThe Register know very well what the EU is. However, in practice, the EU is colloquially referred to as "Europe" in many contexts in the UK. The rules the EU establishes will also apply to the EEA, and in practice will almost certainly also be adopted by the UK, which has tended to take its lead from the EU on such matters since Brexit. So, while pedantically these are not rules for Europe, _for practical purposes_ they likely will be.
- a2800276 11mo agoAlso, most people are aware that "Europe" the continent is unlikely to make such decisions, so it's pretty obvious what's meant by context.
- littlestymaar 11mo agoIt's not obvious at all actually, since there are many European things that also affect Island, Norway and Switzerland for being part of EFTA, but an equally high number of things that don't. And even the EU itself is pretty fragmented with various overlapping areas with different rules. As someone who's studied European relations, I can tell you that it's a real mess, and the fact that journalists don't accurately reporting the facts definitely isn't helpful.
- ttoinou 11mo agoThere are others ways to coordinates european countries than EU institutions
- Aardwolf 11mo agoWhat continent does UK consider itself part of then?
- rsynnott 11mo agoContext matters; you can generally tell whether someone's talking politics or geography.
- Aardwolf 11mo agoBut in politics the distinction between EU and Europe matters, there's the political EU region, but countries like Switzerland and Norway are politically still in Europe despite not being in EU just due to all the neighboring countries, in theory same should apply to UK
- crote 11mo agoIt likes to believe it is somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
- NoboruWataya 11mo agoI think most people realise there is a difference. If nothing else, Brexit made it very clear to those who didn't already know that you can be in this part of the world but not in the EU. But rightly or wrongly, people still use "Europe" as shorthand for "the European Union". It's no different to referring to the US as "America". I do think the media should aim to do better so agree that the Register should have used the correct term.
- _w04p 11mo agoI find your comparison not so convincing. While there is some common misidentification between the EU and Europe, I’ve never heard anyone in the world refer to “America” in a way that was not for the United States.
- KAMSPioneer 11mo agoIn my personal experience, people from Latin American countries will sometimes point out that they are American because they come from North or South America. Which is, of course, true; however, in English conversation, it's often nothing more than pedantry. In Spanish it makes more sense, since there is a separate demonym for a US person that doesn't co-opt the term "American." Outside of Romance language speakers born on the American continents, I agree that everyone seems fine calling US-born persons "Americans" without much confusion nor gnashing of teeth.
- lazide 11mo agoIt’s even more amusing in some ways. A common way to refer to those from the USA in Brazil, for instance (even an official one!) is ‘Norte Americano’. Which is all kinds of weird because - what about Mexico and Canada? And what about the ‘United states’ part? It’s just to disambiguate from ‘Americano’ as in what others in South America sometimes use to refer to latin Americans and as a little bit of a FU to the USA, hahah.
- KAMSPioneer 11mo ago
- School-Cotton 11mo agoYou’re right, but this is probably a losing battle. People are probably never going to stop colloquially referring to the political entity that contains most of Europe’s land and population as “Europe”. And, being on an island, British people are probably never going to stop thinking of “the continent” as at least a little bit of a different thing from themselves.
- mschuster91 11mo agoAnd on top of that, when it comes to anything radio, ITU has quite the lot to say as well, and you got the ham radio community / IARU as well. Radio, by virtue of physically not caring about borders, is a really really hot mess, with lots of very powerful and very monied interests floating around.
- TitaRusell 11mo agoSwitzerland is not in the EU but they follow EU legislation. It's kinda like Canada and the US.
- wkat4242 11mo agoNot directly though. They get some exceptions and they have referenda to implement things. They align with the EU a lot for commercial reasons but not completely. Same with Norway. And really, if they did align completely there'd be no reason to not join.
- StopDisinfo910 11mo agoIt’s called a metonymy and is purposeful. Everyone understood that it was the relevant nearly pan-European political entity which was actually designed by the geographical designation.
- Zironic 11mo agoIt's essentially exactly the same as when people refer to the US as 'America'. While the US does not encompass all of the American continent, there is only one political entity called 'America' so it's not ambigious.
- cromka 11mo agoAs others mentioned, this is British press and Britts tend to colloquially refer to EU as 'Europe'.
- afavour 11mo agoI think people understand that a continent isn’t making decisions.
- ttoinou 11mo agoTo be really pedantic we should acknowledge there's no good reason to separate Europe from Asia, it's all one geographical continent. The distinction between EU and Europe is very important. They're "word stealing" something as neutral as a geographical concept, to make it political. But in this case here, probably if EU legislate on this, others non-EU european countries will follow
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- fundatus 11mo ago> To be really pedantic we should acknowledge there's no good reason to separate Europe from Asia, it's all one geographical continent. To be even more pedantic you have to throw in Africa as well, as that is connected by land to Asia just like Europe is! Now we have the supercontinent Afroeurasia which contains like 85% of the worlds population.
- throwaway198846 11mo agoSuez Canal exists and cuts off Africa from Eurasia
- fundatus 11mo agoObviously, but in case the sarcasm of my comment didn't come through: I was trying to make the point that you can't draw lines between continents just because of geography (or tectonic plates for that matter). It's arbitrary - after all we can't even agree which continents do exist. Relevant watching: Map Men: How many continents are there? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0)
- thrance 11mo agoEU is more Europe than USA is America, yet you don't see much complaining about the latter.
- 0x457 11mo ago> yet you don't see much complaining about the latter. I see that a lot. It just needs people from not the US, but from Americas in comments. Suddenly there are people that are complaining about it.
- FinnKuhn 11mo agoDo you also write "USA, not America" for every headline that uses the later?
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- PunchTornado 11mo agoYou are the one who corrects america with usa?
- welder 11mo agoI wish govt would put a condition on the mobile carriers to fix SS7 vulnerabilities.
- defraudbah 11mo agothis would require some encryption and still can be intercepted. Any ideas how to fix that?
- welder 11mo agoNo, I'm talking about anyone with SS7 access basically has root on the whole network and can query for locations of any phone number anonymously... no audit trail, no access control. https://youtu.be/xfWyU5iXJ3I?t=860 https://youtu.be/xfWyU5iXJ3I?t=860 https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y https://youtu.be/wVyu7NB7W6Y
- Hikikomori 11mo agoWhy when we have bandaids like ss7 firewalls.
- defraudbah 11mo agoright, that's how police and criminals do it, I am aware how it works, what I wonder is how do you fix it, replace the protocol? encrypt it?
- _ink_ 11mo agoYeah, but how could their secret services then snoop on everyone?
- Iolaum 11mo agoupdate to the latest software
- kristofferR 11mo agoIsn't that simply fixed by shutting down the old 2G and 3G networks, like is happening in a lot of countries now?
- oytis 11mo agoFor the context - what do US, UK and China do?
- da_chicken 11mo agoIn the US, it's open for unlicensed use for very low power devices. That is, it's open for WiFi. It's used by WiFi 6E, 7, and 8. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-opens-entire-6-ghz-band-very-low-power-device-operations https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-opens-entire-6-ghz-band-ver...
- sidpatil 11mo agoPerhaps not for much longer: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785987 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785987
- craftkiller 11mo agoThe Trump administration is diligently working to undo that. Why dedicate such a resource to the public, when you can let private companies charge us to use it? https://publicknowledge.org/ted-cruz-wants-to-sell-your-wi-fi-to-att-this-will-make-your-wi-fi-suck-and-your-mobile-bill-higher/ https://publicknowledge.org/ted-cruz-wants-to-sell-your-wi-f...
- hunta2097 11mo agoThey're also planning some overlap. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/innovative-use-of-spectrum/hybrid-sharing-to-access-the-upper-6-ghz-band https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/innovative-use-of-spectrum...
- riobard 11mo agoChina has already reserved the entire 6GHz for cellular and vehicles.
- martinald 11mo agoTbh it's probably much more useful for mobile operators than wifi. 6GHz does not propagate well at all at wifi power limits and as such one 320MHz band probably won't overlap much with neighbours, even in apartment buildings. This does preclude having 640MHz bands though in future wifi standards, but I'm not sure how important that is - Wifi7 on MLO could theoretically deliver 7.2gbit/sec in 2x2 config and double that again in 4x4. If devices need more speed (laptops more than phones) then they can move to 4x4 more? Whereas for mobile operators it would be very useful in outdoor/indoor (airports etc) urban areas that are very busy.
- itopaloglu83 11mo agoAnd why does it need to be reserved exclusively for them? Can’t they be just another user of a well established standard or do they want to abuse the crap out of it?
- arghwhat 11mo agoThey are trying to improve service by avoiding noise. Something few realize is that all wireless technologies are, in effect, time-share: Every device on the channel, router/tower included, take turn to talk while everyone else shuts up and listens. If other types of devices also use your channel, you'll have to shut up and wait for airtime even longer. Having WiFi and cellular co-exist mean that they are both fighting eachother over airtime, and both spending a lot of time silent. It's preferable to avoid channel overlap when the services need to co-exist.
- itopaloglu83 11mo agoThey don’t need a frequency channel dedicated to them just to improve reception inside a stadium or an airport. Tell me what stops them from using the exact same technology they use for WiFi calling? They just want to own the means the people connect to the internet and be a tax on everyone.
- arghwhat 11mo ago
- wtmt 11mo ago> In response, the Wi-Fi Alliance and the DSA are trying to stoke fears that such a move would severely dent Europe's digital development, claiming Wi-Fi is the primary way consumers access the internet and constraining it would impact progress. Just today, there’s a news report in India where the major telecom companies have lobbied that the entire 6 GHz band be reserved for mobile services and that even part of it shouldn’t be left for unlicensed WiFi. [1] The problem in India is that the penetration of wired broadband is very low, and the telcos don’t seem to be interested in expanding it as much as they are in grabbing more of wireless spectrum. I don’t believe it’s a good move to reserve these exclusively for mobile services. We (in general) need more unlicensed spectrum for innovation. Let the companies figure out another way out. I also know that these bands are already allowed for unlicensed WiFi use in the US. [1]: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/jio-airtel-vi-demand-reservation-of-6-ghz-band-for-mobile-services-to-trai/125221875 https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/j...
- matt-p 11mo agoFor better or worse mobile companies will probably make a more efficient use of the space in a country like India at a practical level. I can at least see why you might do this. I don't know anything really about India's telecoms market, but I know in other 'similar' countries you can buy a mobile phone data plan for like a couple/few dollars a month, but a fixed line is 10X that. You could argue it's not very progressive to reserve the spectrum for the 'rich' who can afford fixed lines.
- muststopmyths 11mo agoFew people have phone landlines anymore in India, but wired broadband to the home is not uncommon. It would be annoying to not then be able to have a home WiFi 6G router. Mobile data is cheap, but broadband is much cheaper.
- matt-p 11mo agoGiven we know 5Ghz can give us like 600Mbps real world on 80Mhz channels, would a fixed line in India typically be above that speed? Is it all GPON these days or still DSL/WISP type stuff?
- fguerraz 11mo agoThis is just corporate greed! I live in a EU country in an apartment and 5GHz is completely crowded and pretty much unusable because of DFS (making your WiFi AP unexpectedly stop to do a complete scan and choose a new channel), so 6GHz is the only stable, high bandwidth option here, and we need more channels so that most peopole chan switch to it. The cellular networks operators can have that shitty 5GHz part of the spectrum if they want it!
- Bombthecat 11mo agoAnd you think the same problem wouldn't exist with 6ghz? It will be as crowded as 5
- xoa 11mo ago>And you think the same problem wouldn't exist with 6ghz? Yes. Probably because they have some basic grasp of electromagnetic reality, which perhaps you might consider studying a bit before forming strong opinions? >It will be as crowded as 5 Physically impossible. 6 GHz simply does not have the material penetration, that's the point. Having way more raw bandwidth on tap, all available all the time without DFS plopped in the middle too, is also extremely helpful of course too. But the signal just not traveling as far and not going through walls well is the core thing. You don't need special effort EM shielding for it so much, bulk material will do it. And WAPs are cheap now. Having a higher number of smaller cells has been best practice for awhile already, and 6 GHz takes that much further.
- matt-p 11mo agoWe said this about 5Ghz when that came out. I'm sorry to say it's not true, there's more than enough spectrum in 5Ghz if properly managed and co-ordinated. I would rather fix that first. Why is it we can run WiFi for thousands of developers in one room/venue just fine but people living in apartment blocks are apparently struggling with a dozen devices per 60sqm apartment? APs using 160MHZ channel widths with 1 or 2 spatial streams because it's cheaper than 80MHZ channels and 3 or 4 spatial streams. Absolutely crap 'auto' channel selection, too high a power (because cheaper than a second AP), poor AP placement and inappropriate channel width (in an apartment block 40Mhz per AP might be optimal).
- stego-tech 11mo agoMultiple things can be true simultaneously. For instance: * The reach for 6GHz by mobile service providers is straight-up greed, as Wi-Fi is a threat to their business expansions towards monopolization * Wi-Fi is incredibly overcrowded, and a shift to 6GHz will not solve the underlying issues causing the crowding in the first place (mobile device density, over-reliance on Wi-Fi instead of running ethernet to capable devices and drop points) * ISPs would prefer mobile service providers get 6GHz so they can get higher speeds to fixed receivers without the requisite network buildout My personal position? Give 6GHz to Wi-Fi, but also make it clear that this is the last spectrum the standard will get. Simultaneously, promote (through regulations, subsidies, or municipal buildouts) wired networking wherever practicable. The fact new construction in 2025 doesn’t mandate ethernet drops in every non-bathroom is what’s contributing to Wi-Fi crowding, and prevalent last-mile wired access ensures that mobile operators have to compete on cost rather than data caps - and thus hinders their monopolization efforts.
- valzam 11mo agoI mean given the computing devices most people use are you suggesting a large majority of the population switches to ethernet adapter's for their tablets and phones?
- n_u 11mo agoWireless ethernet adapters
- Kye 11mo agoHaving to blast wifi through an entire building is part of the problem. If transceivers only need enough power to go a foot or three from an ethernet port with a wifi dongle on it, the problem is solved. See also: cell phones having to boost power for more distant towers. As things are, every device has to scream to be heard.
- stego-tech 11mo agoNo, not remotely? I don’t know why folks jump to that (wrongest) conclusion whenever someone mentions ethernet being made a requirement in construction or use. Can tablets and phones use ethernet? Yes! Should they? Perhaps for a fixed installation, but otherwise no, because that’s not their primary role? Same goes for laptops: if it’s stationary, plug it in; if not, WiFi is fine. The goal is to shift traffic where reasonable and practical onto wired networks. Desktops, laptops, set top boxes, streaming rigs, control panels, SBCs, game consoles, the list goes on. The only “Wi-Fi required” devices are really just laptops, phones, tablets, watches, and similarly high-mobility devices. Otherwise, ethernet should be the norm.
- walletdrainer 11mo agoI just unlocked the entire 5GHz and 6GHz bands for my equipment, it’s not like my networks will penetrate my exterior walls anyways. Just waiting for the Wi-Fi cops to show up
- mono442 11mo agoHow would this even work when the devices are already on sale and people are using them?
- riobard 11mo agoOK, can we have 7GHz and 8GHz for Wi-Fi please?
- wkat4242 11mo ago6Ghz will suck for mobile due to the incredibly bad building penetration. One of the reasons that makes it pretty ideal for indoor WiFi.
- panick21_ 11mo agoI really don't understand the underlying physics, politcs or really anything. Why don't we at home just host 'cellular' networks instead of WiFi? Could we just have a our own little cellular network? Why do we need both?