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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?
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...
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.
If you don't like it, take 'em to court. The courts CAN tell 'em they're full of hogwash.
But in this case the courts would almost certainly rule that they are right - that congress DID give them that exclusive regulatory authority, and that the supremacy clause extends that authority over the states and their subdivisions.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
I'm going to go dance in the street.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
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.
"prohibit airport authorities from limiting or restricting tenants from implementing and operating a wireless system".
Emphasis mine.
You'll find another clause in your lease that goes something like this:
"If any clause of this contract is found to be void by law it does invalidate other legal clauses."
You see, they recognize that terms of your lease might well be legally unenforcable, void, and if they don't have that clause such could be held to void the entire lease.
You are not bound by void clauses, even if you sign them. Your landlord relies on your ingnorance of this fact to get you to follow the terms he wishes.
This statement by the FCC is that any such clause is void because your landlord has no legal authority to so restrict you, even by contract. It is prohibited.
No, I am not a lawyer, but I am a landlord.
KFG
There are very few exceptions to this rule. Legitimate safey regulations (which is very narrowly defined), regulations related to the preservation of properties listed on the National Register of Historic places, you can't damage someone elses property with your antenna (drilling holes in a railing or roof you don't own), reasonable size restrictions, and finally it has to be in your own private space, not a common area.
If you take a look at a lot of apartment complexes these days you'll notice a lot of satellite antennas mounted to buckets sitting on decks. This ruling is why. The apartment complexes hate it, they think they're ugly, but there is nothing they can do about it.
Incidentally this same ruling was ammended to apply to fixed wireless, and yes they do mention Internet access. I don't think it's too difficult to say that this existing ruling already preempts any potential contract clause that you're worried about. At a minimum I think it shows how the FCC would end up ruling on the issue.
I can't seem to find this new ruling online yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if it also already dealt with this issue. I would imagine that the airlines lease included some sort of clause like this.
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?
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.
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.
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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.