Breaking Old Regulations and Old Habits

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."

Comments

Money and Fear

[El Pollo Loco]

Unfortunantly, as long there is greed in the world, there will always be problems with government legalization. In addition, fear is often also a driving factor. Just look at the large amount of products out there to protect users from cell phonce radiation. People are always scared of new things. Especially if it has the oppurtunity to relive them of some of the money that they have been earning(drug war anyone?).

Re:Effects on Opensource

[sylvester]

If it becomes a law for one, it's law for another.

Not really.

It's really not that difficult to imagine a law that was written such that those who licensed their IP (code) under certain criteria (zero cost, freely redistributable, modifiable, whatever. Think open source criteria) would be exempt. And in particular, any well-drafted law would have this property.

Whether one can expect that from the fine congress you folks have elected is another matter entirely. :-)

Goddamn Hams!

[phliar]

Which is more important to the economy and to social progress in general: digital broadband or ham radio? The truth is that ham radio trumps digital broadband, just because ham radio has been around longer and therefore is sanctified with a license to use the spectrum. (Yes, it's happened--a ham radio operator has actually shut down an 802.11 network.)

This one section is enough for me to dismiss anything else this crackpot has to say. Yer damn right ham radio trumps your stupid unlicensed network. When there's a disaster and all the landlines are down -- and that includes fiber backbones, broadband-boy -- hams are the ones who relay messages for rescue services.

Now, about a ham radio operator "actually" shutting down a network -- where and when? Hams are perhaps the most conscientious users of spectrum anywhere. They have clean signals and stay in their bandwidth -- bandwidth they are licensed to operate in. Consumer electronics, on the other hand, are the worst offenders. And 802.11b is unlicensed and must accept all interference caused to it by licensed users -- which includes microwave ovens. Read Part 15 and Part 18 of the FCC regulations.

ObDisclaimer: I am not (and have never been) a ham radio operator.