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Regulatory Fees on the 802.11 Broadcast Spectrum?
Demerara asks: "I live in the Caribbean where I am putting together a business plan for a WISP on St. Lucia. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the St. Lucian National Telecomms Regulatory Commission here licenses and charges fees for 2.4Ghz spread spectrum applications. It's nearly US$400 to apply and, get this, nearly US$800 per link, per *year*. This blows the economics of a WISP out of the water. I may be reading the laws and regulations wrong but I don't think so. For example - they even charge an application fee and an annual license for the 'Family Band' walkie-talkies - look in the fees PDF. I am attempting to find out the following: what international agreements govern spectrum management; what international agreements govern licensing of WiFi or 802.11;
and finally, are there any Slashdot readers out there who live in countries where 802.11 technology is also licensed or heavily regulated? The ITU website doesn't seem to answer these questions or, to be fair, I cannot come up with the keywords to find the answers. I'd love to hear from others who use or operate 802.11 under less than 'free' regulatory regimes."
Doesn't 802.11a operate at a different frequency (5.5ghz)?
It's getting better, just.
There are still very strict limits on signal strength in normal circumstances outside buildings. But the regulatory body started to grant 'exceptional' licences last October, mainly in rural areas where France Telecom refuse to install terrestial broadband (FT replaced MS as the company I most like to hate some time ago...)
As with anything else in France, you have to produce an enormous dossier, a large part of which involves showing that your installation won't crash any jets at the local air base, as wifi uses a French military frequency. You would have thought that the military would shift, but there you are.
Last time I looked (a couple of weeks ago) I think 20 or so licences had been awarded across the country.
Virtually serving coffee
There are few "international agreements" regarding the use of the EM spectrum, outside of not interfereing with each other. Each nation is free to regulate who can transmit and how they do it.
For example, certain 802.11b/g channels that can be used in the US cannot be used in Europe, and vice versa.
However, you may also want to look into the 900mhz band that 802.11b/g uses. In the US its unregulated, and may be for St. Lucia as well.
Consider yourself lucky that the government still owns and collects on 802.11 frequencies. In Trinidad, they sold those rights away to a private company which is even more vehement in putting obsticales in the way of using wifi. Public commons should not be privately owned, and this is more true in spectrum than anywhere else.
In Russia we have the same situation.
Our ministry of communications requires company that use 802.11b for commercial to pay 2000$ per year for liciencing. There are special licenses on telecommunicational services and commercial communications.
And in every case of 802.11b you can have problem with local state security or military...
Although there are international treaties governing radio communications, those are mainly intended mainly to avoid interference. They don't govern how a government chooses to manage its licensing process. (Just as an example, contrast the US privately operated broadcast radio spectrum with the state operation of broadcasting in many countries.)
Particularly at the VHF/UHF/microwave frequencies that normally do not travel across national boundaries, even the international regulations become more limited and countries often opt out of the ITU (International Telecommunications Union) agreements as to specific frequency allocations.
The unlicensed "Part 15" operation in the US is a creature of the US radio regulations, and not any international requirement -- though many other countries recognize (or at least tolerate) 802.11b operation, they aren't *required* to.
Slate had a travel diary by a GeekCorps guy in Mongolia- seems they have a similar policy. IMO, a lot of third world countries have fairly unimaginative beauracracies..
He says (and I quote) "what's going wrong with Mongolia's Internet policy. Here's an example: In most parts of the world, the 2.4 ghz portion of the radio spectrum is set aside for unlicensed use by low-power, short-range devices--like Wi-Fi (aka 802.11b) wireless Internet cards and cordless telephones--without government permission. The result has been an astounding explosion in the deployment of wireless Internet connections, from home networks to the T-Mobile hotspot at each of the 17 Starbucks on your block. In Mongolia, however, the regulatory authority has ruled that companies and users must obtain official licenses (and pay costly licensing fees) to use the 2.4 ghz range for any purpose. Even to set up a wireless home network requires government permission and the payment of fees. This policy can best be described as bonkers."
There are a large number of international treaties on spectrum usage. However, I don't know that any of them apply to such high frequency signals. Mostly, they have to do with AM and lower bands (which have the possibility to go hundreds or thousands of miles, and thus become an international concern) or things like the FM bands used for commercial air flight. 2.4 GHz, however, had very little international concern except the interoperability of hardware between different contries. Even among the contries that declare 2.4 GHz as an unlicensed part of the spectrum, there are varying regulations on broadcast power and the like.
The United States has treaties with Mexico and Canada that lay out a framework for coordination of radio and television licensing. You can't just hop across the border and build a 1 MW radio station on any frequency you like.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
GMRS is very similar to FRS, but with more channels and higher power limits. It seems many people aren't aware that in the U.S. users of GMRS radios are supposed to be licensed at ~$80/5 years. Most users of cheap GMRS radios don't know/care that they are supposed to be periodicaly broadcasting their callsign, and these can't be used just like high-power FRS radios.
WPXQ778
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Those vans are greatly overrated. When my mother lived in London, she was harrassed by those guys and she didn't even have a TV.
Luckily she had a security chain, apparently, they were ready to push their way inside, but they were not willing to go all the way and break the door down.
Sometimes, even if you don't know exactly what's going on, when someone messes up the one part you DO know, you just doubt them on everything.
E.g.: Family Radio Service (FRS) is FREE! The application fee is for GMRS, radios which are more powerful, and broadcast on a slightly different set of frequencies. Presumably, the confusion comes about due to the fact that 7 of the 22 GMRS channels (more precisely, 7 of the 22 channels GMRS radios operate on) are FRS... but FRS is still free (I don't know about using GMRS radios on FRS-only freqs).
-- Is "Sig" copyrighted by www.sig.com?
Nigeria: open spectrum and heavy Wi-Fi use. However there is tons of interference in Lagos and the regulator recently said they might back out.
Ghana: Wi-Fi is used a lot but regulation is unclear. Reportedly a hassle to import radios. It's possible to license on the 2.4 bands, which means it's not open spectrum. IDN makes a PC/linux based access point LOCALLY.
Tanzania: unlicensed 100 mW. license for 100 mW or higher is $50 (per radio). TCC is the regulator.
South Africa: uses ancient ISM band definition. [1] Regulator recently threatened Wireless ISPs who were using 2.4 for outdoor point-to-point links!
Kenya: no clear regulation, not much use. But new government seems to be moving towards open spectrum. CCK is regulator
Uganda: open spectrum. heavy use of Wi-Fi. BushNet is one ISP that is very progressive.
simon
[1] the ancient Industrial, Scientific, and Medical (ISM) band definition didn't allow "carrier" use to carry any telecomm/internet traffic. Now there are no type-of-use restrictions AT ALL on 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, but some countries still use the obsolete ISM definition by mistake.
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