Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Breaking Old Regulations and Old Habits

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the breakin-the-law-breakin-the-law dept.

tadghin writes ""Under the current regulatory regime, 802.11 would never have been legalized." Andy Oram reports this comment by David Reed in his summary of a wireless policy BOF session at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference. Andy discusses some of the hidden regulatory threats to wireless networking and what we might do about them, as well as many of the other sessions he attended, in a conference report on Wednesday's sessions."

2 of 67 comments (clear)

  1. 3G wireless by warnerpr · · Score: 2, Informative

    I read the part about 802.11 wireless, very interesting.
    But the 3G wireless part was misleading. The section is entitled "Don't forget 3G" but it is all about SMS, which is more of a 2G wireless technology, heck even if it was supposed to be about GPRS that is a 2.5G wireless thing. 3G might not be dead (or even barely born yet really) but SMS is not the proof of this! Happily it is gaining momentum in the US though as more carries move to GSM.

  2. A new band by cyberformer · · Score: 4, Informative
    The article calls for a new dedicated spectrum band for wireless networking, that can't be shut down by other users who have a higher priority. But the author doesn't seem to realize that there already is such a band: it's called the Unlicensed National Information Infrastructure band, at 5GHz., and is intended for 802.11a wireless LANs (as well as 802.16 wireless local loop).


    In the medium term, 802.11a will replace 802.11b/Wi-Fi. As well as lack of interference, the U-NII is simply larger, allowing a lot more networks to co-exist in the same airwaves.