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FCC: Only We Can Regulate Unlicensed Spectrum
rfc1394 writes "In an article in ComputerWeekly, it was announced that the FCC has ruled that it has final jurisdiction over unlicensed wireless space, meaning that an airport authority can't force airlines to (pay to) use its wireless network and they may set up and use their own. This bodes well for the development of wireless networks in various areas as it means that you have the right to set up your own network even if your landlord would want you to use theirs."
For those of you outside of Massachusetts reading here...
"Massport"... sounds like it's a business or something, but it's just a trendy name for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which is just a branch of the state government trying to sound a little more important than they really are.
This makes it clear... anybody has the right to operate a WiFi device within the FCC-set limits, and if it bothers your WiFi device then well tough. It's unlicensed, but not unregulated.
Why abolish the FCC? They stick up for the little guys, too.
I remember being outraged at the petty officialdom thinking that they somehow had exclusive control of the radiowaves around their airport. This is indeed a *Good Thing* and should serve as a reminder to other local fifedoms.
"Eve of Destruction", it's not just for old hippies anymore...
Does this mean colleges can't prevent their students from setting up their own wireless networks?
Suppose you are an exhibitor at an expo.
Can the management of the expo say that you cannot hook up a Wi-Fi router to the network that they have a monopoly over in the convention center?
but your landlord can just put the "must use the landlord's wireless network" clause in your lease. You sign away many, many rights when you sign a lease already, this would just be one more.
It's monday... so do we hate the evil, censoring FCC, or do we love the wonderful "defender of the rights" FCC? I though the love part was only for the weekends...
The article says "the FCC has ruled that it has final jurisdiction over unlicensed wireless space"
I think the ruling is a good one, but something about the previous sentence bothers me: I don't like the idea that the FCC can decide what it does and does not control. Does anyone see the potential for abuse? *puts on tinfoil hat*
Opti-Fi Networks has been affected by this a few times. Several port authorities have demanded that we remove our AP's pending their approval, effectively removing competition in these markets. On the other hand, when the port authority runs things, the wireless networks tend to be more designed with the "total package" in mind -- the whole airport is usually wired then, and not just Airtran (In the case of Opti-Fi) gates.
Nope, my land-lord doesn't want me on his network -- that would reduce bandwidth needed for porn surfing. If I'm lucky he won't request to use some of my network bandwidth too. Some people are just wired in unique ways.
Wait, we can just do that now? Sweet! I rule only I have jurisdiction over wire mesh screens! Or did somebody else already call that?
I'm going to go dance in the street.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
how much does it cost to monitor and enforce the right?
if FCC has not limited the number of access points that one man can have, the landlord can muscle out its tenant's right easily. Just install as many APs as possible.
we need more geeky lawyers... new jobs!!! :-P
^(oo)^pig~
I'm laughing at you, not with you.
First we learn that Microsoft is essentially using the BSD open source license. Now the FCC is doing something that is pro-consumer. What gives?!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/ DA-04-1844A1.pdf
Rather than settling for a press article, enjoy reading the real thing. It's a short, three pages.
-- This is not legal advice or solicitation. See an attorney for legal advice. My views, not anyone else's..
We love the FCC when they stay within their mandated role of regulating technical issues. We hate the FCC when they overstep their mandate and attempt to regulate content. All clear now?
I personally feel that the First Christian Church should have NO control over wireless at all. Don't they have souls to save or something? I have prayed for Gods help quite often with regard to my company's network, but that's just different.
But it certainly will act in its own interest. The FCC is not intervening because it is right, it's intervening because someone is trying to horn in on their territory.
If there were only some way to make it in the government's interest to save money and represent the citizens to the best of their ability, we'd be living in a golden age.
So... Only the FCC can regulate the use of the RF spectrum. Okay, clear enough...
What implications does this have for the ubiquitous banning of cell phone use on airplanes (in favor of the much more expensive payphones they have available for passengers who really need to make a call)?
Personally, I've always considered the cell phone ban during flights as nothing short of offensive. Yeah, suuuuure it interferes with their navigation. Hey, guess what, if cell phones interfered with airplane navigation, the very fact that your phone can get a signal (from huge many-megawatt transmitting cell towers) would cause far more problems than the RF output of your sad little portable transmitter (aka "phone").
Any thoughts, from someone who might really know the answer to this? Cell phones now kosher, or no? How about WAPs (ie, networked games between two people with 802.11 on their laptops on the same flight)? How about VOIP, if you can get a signal?
Now thats all fine and good but am i the only one paranoid about the government acquiring more power. I say the government should have three jobs: 1) common defense 2) build roads 3) deliver the mail Thats it no more
means that you have the right to set up your own network even if your landlord would want you to use theirs
although you no longer have the right to speak freely over your network, since the FCC now has pervue over it to censor and fine you according to their prushish, clintonite whims.
Ironically, I've been dealing with this exact situation in airports, but the fight is between the dominating terminal tennant and the authority that controls the terminal/airport.
In short, the Authority controlling the terminal (varies by city/state) wants to control Wireless access to enable 3rd parties to come in (concourse is one of the larger) to sell wireless access with the authority getting profit from the deal.
The Dominating tennant, usually an airline, has quite a bit of say (They're actually responsible for maintaining the facility set forth by the authority), but has been fighting an uphill battle with frequency allocation. In Short, the authority is looking to make money. The dominating tennant is looking for stability. My company operates a 802.11b network throughout a terminal and we were 'assigned' a channel by the dominating tennant. Obviously, I could run on any frequency I choose, but if I did, they'd shutdown my equipment (my antennas are on their roof, in their IDFs, powered by their power, etc.) and prohibit me from operating. They can, kick me out of the terminal if I won't impact them too much (There's a termination for convienence clause in these leases) or, simply over power my network by broadcasting the same SSID and dropping traffic to an VLAN that goes no where.
Yes, the FCC says I have certain rights, but when you choose to co-exist with someone who's ultimately a) paying you and/or b) allowing you to make money, politics plays a huge deal so it's best to work it out peacefully.
Your foul life is full of sins, not religious, just heinous, your karma is low, you don't confess, and you aren't in prison where you belong.
WHAT? The terrorists don't even bother to karma whore? They must post anonymously... just like you! Quick, Ashcroft! Get him!
I wouldn't get too excited. The FCC has authority derived from the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Technically they have no authority to govern intrastate radio emissions. This has had little challenge in the federal courts up to now, because nobody gave a crap. There was no significant money to be made or lost one way or the other. However, this situation is different. There is significant money at stake. Look for challenges to FCC jurisdiction to spring up. Who knows, maybe a case will make it to the Supreme Court and put the FCC in their place with regards to this issue and similar issues.
--Slashdot: News for Turds. Stuff that Splatters.
The GPS and navcom antennas on the exterior of the aircraft are very carefully engineered, installed and tested to work acceptably well in an RF-hostile external environment. The fuselage of an aluminum aircraft is a faraday cage, however, and all the avionics are mounted inside with wiring to their respective antennas also *inside* the fuselage. Any unpredicatable and unpredictably-located RF sources *inside* the fuselage do indeed create all kinds of wild reflected RF harmonics bouncing around all inside the aircraft which have been demonstrated many times to affect the operation of GPS, RNAV/DME and Glideslope receivers, because these receivers are *very* sensitive in order to do their main jobs. That also means they are very sensitive to harmonic RF intererence, phase shift error, etc.
The expensive payphones installed into airliners have been engineered and *EXHAUSTIVELY* tested to weed out any interference with the airliner's avionics. That's about half why they're so expensive to use. Of course, greed is the other reason. If the captain of an aircraft doesn't want you to operate electronic toys on board his aircraft, you must respect his wishes, he *is* the boss after all.
I'm a private pilot and own a small single engine airplane. I have both a small GPS system and an older Loran system to augment my navigation. I also carry my cellphone with me everywhere I fly, but I DO turn it off because I've found out that just being on in standby mode, it will noticeably lessen the Loran's ability to lock onto the ground transmitters. The cellphone operates at near microwave frequencies, the Loran operates at about 100KHz, a rather long wavelength. They are at complete opposite ends of the RF spectrum, yet the interference is plainly observable, most likely caused by RF harmonics messing with the sensitive timing in the Loran.
Think again. There are all sorts of arbitrary restrictions and rules that colleges are allowed to impose on students. You have a legal right to drink and own a handgun if you're over 21, but many colleges have blanket rules against possessing alcohol or firearms while on campus or in dorm rooms. Similarly, while there's no law preventing you from operating a WAN on an unlicensed portion of the spectrum, colleges are still able to make a 'no active WAN cards in the dorm' rule.
That's why virtually every college makes you sign the "I understand the college's rules and agree to abide by them" document when you enroll.
It's nice to know that our FCC is looking out for us, even though some of us want to abolish the FCC.
Of course, this just means more fodder for wardriving!
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
I recall hearing something (or perhaps I read it) about Carnegie Mellon Unv a number of years back (2000 or 2001 perhaps?) about CMY declaring that all the airwaves above their campus are their sole property and can not be legally interfered with by anyone on or off campus. Basically they wanted to ensure that their wireless network had no competition. I'm thinking it was CMU. I haven't been able to find anything about it though in a few minutes of Googling. The FCC's ruling would mean that CMU could no longer declare unlicensed spectrum to be their own for their own exclusive use (or licensing depending on how you look at it). I see this ruling possibly applying to students in a dorm that want to have an AP in their room. The school says no because they are offering their own wireless access. The FCC ruling would say that's a no no. Interesting ruling no matter how you look at it.
The difference is that as an enrolled student (or employee) you have to abide by the rules of the institution, which could very easily be amended to include rules against non-approved network access devices being attached to a given network.
I'm also glad for this FCC ruling. After reading about the citywide network in Rio Rancho, NM, which has rather hefty subscriber fees ($50/mo for 1 Mb/s), I wondered if authorities were seeking monopolization of WiFi.
This statement from the FAQs could indicate that: It's important to have the involvement of city government in approving this type of deployment
Why? Maybe if the service were free and tax supported, not subscription based. All they really provide is WiMax routers on lamp poles and the 43 Mb/s backhaul. (You supply your own WiFi card/router.) The disruptive technology that Cringely extolled recently, regarding Linksys/Sveasoft DIY mesh networks, is much preferable.
What Rio Rancho gets out of the deal is subsidized bandwidth for emergency services, which taxes ought to cover. Now government officials have an interest in suppressing DIY mesh networks. And Rio Rancho is being held up as a model for other communities.
The FCC ruling is very much in the spirit of Open Source.
The ruling applies only to governmental and quasi governmental entities. The private sector can do whatever they please, unless some specific law limits their powers.
So landlords could restrict tenants rights, regardless of what the FCC does.
The distinction between "individual computer" and "wireless router" could get a little blurry, considering any computer with a wireless card could potentially rebroadcast access to other machines. So do we ban wireless cards from campus? But it's integrated in laptops and coming to standard motherboards soon.
If you're running a secure wireless network where you need a passkey to access it, how is the college going to know you're linked to their primary network unless they either obtain or crack your key and see where data winds up routing through? You could say your wireless network isn't connected to the campus network, how do they prove otherwise?
Introducing the new Occam Fusion! Now with sqrt(-1) fewer blades!
Electrically conductive glass and wire screen goes an awful long way. What you don't cover by those means can be handled by building a small foyer around each door, such that either the inner or outer door is closed at all times (like an airlock).
Turning a building into a Faraday cage isn't that difficult of a proposition. It requires some money and a little construction, but beyond that it's straightforward.
Colleges are not above the rule of law. Colleges cannot overrule the authority of the FCC and start regulating what types of RF people put out - the FCC has explicit domain in these matters as per law. There is no laws in the federal government saying "Only the federal government can regulate guns and alcohol".
Now, I don't exactly know why a college would ban a student from having a WAN card, nor do I know any students who would be running a T1 or DS3 to their dorms, so I don't quite understand this business about WAN interfaces.
This ruling only stops other arms of the goverment from trying to take on the activities only the FCC is legally set out to do.
How do you think movie theaters get away with telling people not to use cell phones during the movie?
There is only a few cases where the FCC has tried to hone in on private restrictions of the use of spectrum and that is in the case of housing contracts/deeds that ban the use of outdoor antenna/dishes but allow the use of CATV connections. In that case, the FCC did step in and say that landlords and deed restrictions cannot stop the use of these in most cases.
Too many people on Slashdot are acting as if they have law degrees or some other form of knowledge that gives them authority to speak on these matters (i.e. actually reading the ruling to know what it says).
Private property owners (and this includes private colleges) can do almost whatever they want (the law does specify some exclusions but RF use isn't one of them), includng restrict the use of 802.11 RF equipment.
This ruling does not break new ground for the FCC, it merely affirms that only the FCC can regulate wireless spectrum. Your local city, for instance, could not place a tax on radio equipment or require them to undergo a certification test (like the one FCC does already) becuase the FCC is a federal body and under our constitituion, federal laws are supreme over State (city and county goverments derive their power from the State) laws.
Where in this ruling does it say that? NOWHERE. I actually read it! It does not say a damn thing about colleges or private entities for that matter.
This ruling does not apply to private property or private agreements. Movie theatres can kick people out for using their FCC approved cell phones during a movie and private colleges can restrict your use of wireless access points if they so desire.
Please read the ruling before actually spouting off ignorant and uninformed statements like that.
but from what i've just read:
Can your college prevent you from making a wireless lan
Probably not
Can your college prevent you from connecting unauthorised equipment (like your base station) to their network (and from there probably to the internet
Well (d'oh) YEAH - it's their network, sure they can control access
The FCC isn't in the job of picking what their job is or isn't.
It wasn't until Reagan deregulated them in terms of commercial length (7 commercial ad time:: 30 air time) such that they could do as they please. Ta-da! infomercials.
What about the emergency services?
While private colleges are perfectly capable of not allowing computers to connect to the network, it is impossible to prevent connected computers to share their connection with others. VPN or otherwise.
/.er should be able to easily setup Windows XP to bridge these connections), and Linksys boxes make particularly good firewalls for a Dorm-Room LAN party. Second NICs are $20, and if someone can get online with Windows XP, they can share the line with the rest of their local network with their Linksys. This is very much like my home network (except that I connect the linksys to the cable and not through a Windows box).
Laptop users with multiple network cards can be used as a WAP (your average
Also, the theatre is not interested in your using cell phones during a movie as long as it doesn't interfere with the film. Want to bet that the theatre won't care a whit if you spend ten minutes talking in their lobby on your cell phone but would be concerned if you spend ten seconds talking in the auditorium when the movie is on.
It's simple common courtesy to the other movie goers.
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
Last year a german airline started allowing cellphones
I don't believe this is true; I'd like to see a link substantiating it. Certainly Lufthansa don't allow them. Perhaps you are thinking of airlines that allow phone/PDA type devices in 'flight mode' (with the radio component switched off)? Or perhaps the airlines that are allowing them in the plane *on the ground* (e.g. before takeoff and after landing?) Or perhaps something like this, which deals with airlines installing mini-cells in the actual planes themselves? But as far as I'm aware no airline currently allows the use of cellphones in flight.
I'm not sure why this is a good thing. If the Massport (people who own and run the airport) want to prohbit the use of other wireless access points in their buildings they should be able to. It's private property. Now if they are prohibiting the use of access points just in random areas where their signals are reaching but they don't own, that's bad. But if they own the house, I see no reason why they can't dictate who runs what in the house.
Amateur radio operators have put up large antennae on their property drawing the ire of homeowner's associations and sometimes finding themselves at odds with municipal ordinances. The FCC basically said they have the final word on this.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
" FCC just happens to embody the public interest right now."
No, the FCC is consistently pro-business, anti-consumer, and beholden to right-wing kooks.
That said, the FCC was right in this particular case, but lets be honest, even a stopped clock is right twice a day.
I have two major things to point out about this. A good friend of mine is a pilot(well, now co-pilot) for US Airways and he has told me that the reason for then ban on cell phones is simply due to a guess years ago when cell phones were first coming into real usage. No one really knew what they would do but he has said he has never seen any problem in flight, take off, or landing due to cell phones(I take this means he has used his before because he keeps it with him all the time). Further, my father is a private pilot, similar to the poster above with a single engine plane with lots of those nice gadgets like GPS and such, and I can say from using my cell phone in flight countless times, it has no effect on any instruments he uses during flight. I'm not sure about takeoff because usually he will let me do it and even if he didn't, the engine is running near 100%, which is like a constant roar, I wouldn't be able to hear anything. By my experience, I'm inclined to believe my friend that this is merely bad science that just keeps persisting because airlines have no monetary reason to allow cell phone use. As for the ruling, I think it was a great idea. There are several landlords that try to ban wireless networks, and I think its because with a little savvy, one person to get internet and broadcast to anyone in the building he so pleases. I know when I visit my sister, her neighbors have a completely unprotected wireless network so I just use that rather than my sister's dial-up. If I were to bring a repeater to my sister's place and set it up, I could extend that network to several other places.
it's summer vacation. love the wonderful "defender of the rights" FCC, and then when the next slashdot story comes up, hate the evil censoring FCC.
Wasnt there a story ages back about a baseball park trying to set up for-pay WiFi access and getting mad at some locals who had set up free access that covered the ball park...Guess this would apply there too....
So today the FCC is good? I thought they were the evil overlords? Damn you folks change your minds more than my wife.
Also, the theatre is not interested in your using cell phones during a movie as long as it doesn't interfere with the film. Want to bet that the theatre won't care a whit if you spend ten minutes talking in their lobby on your cell phone but would be concerned if you spend ten seconds talking in the auditorium when the movie is on.
Well, from the hue and cry around here, it's apparent that the theatre owners really don't give a hoot if you spend 10 minutes talking in the audiotorium either.
It's simple common courtesy to the other movie goers.
"Courtesy", what is this "courtesy" you speak of? Does that have something to do with Queen Elizabeth's court?
I'm not going to look up the cite for you, but I recall in law school a case I read in which the Commerce Clause of the Constitution was used in a case where a Kentucky/Tennessee BBQ joint was discriminating against black patrons (they had to buy their BBQ at the back door of the kitchen, and were not allowed in the dining room). To make a long story short, the restaurant was held to be engaged in interstate commerce, because maybe some of its patrons came from out of state, and maybe some of the products they used were produced in other states.
This, of course, was from the glory days of the Commerce Clause. But no matter how conservative the court gets, the justices aren't going to get rid of the FCC's authority over the airwaves. This would be equivalent of states being allowed to regulate air transport, issue pilot's licenses, etc.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
This sounds like a very nice freedom, but think of all the evil that can be done with a unstanderized network.WUAHAHAHA... I am always kinda pessimistic about these things,but Anywho thanks FCC for OPEN WIRELESS BANDWIDTH !!!