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FCC Allows Mix-and-Match Wi-Fi Antennas

Glenn Fleishman writes "We just filed a story at Wi-Fi Networking News about how the FCC recently and quietly approved rules that will allow the legal use of the Pringles can and other antennas. Currently, it's clearly illegal--even though it's incredibly easy--to swap out a manufacturers' antennas from a Wi-Fi access point with an antenna of your choosing. It's legal to sell antennas; not legal to deploy them. Call it the switchblade kit rule: legal to sell, but don't assemble. The FCC's new rule provides a middle ground: a manufacturer can certify their hardware with the highest gain legal antennas of each type (yagi, omni, etc.) and then end-users can swap in antennas of equal or lesser signal characteristics. It's an important move because it removes the potential for community wireless and individual users to be prosecuted for illegal antennas once new certifications are in place."

12 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    first post

    1. Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      you did it.

      now remove your dick from your dog's anus and continue working.

    2. Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Tough words from a guy who's browsing at -1.

    3. Re:fp by Awol411 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      what does that mean??

    4. Re:fp by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

      Welcome to ./, fuckface.

  2. FP? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    FP?

  3. But... wait... by w.p.richardson · · Score: 1, Offtopic
    Michael... Powell... is... evil!

    This can't be happening!

    --

    Curb CO2 emissions: Kill yourself today!

    1. Re:But... wait... by proj_2501 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      the stuff that grows on your dead body emits co2 as well!

    2. Re:But... wait... by strictnein · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      the stuff that grows on your dead body emits co2 as well!

      Use your body as fertilizer for trees! Then you'll win!

    3. Re:But... wait... by drinkypoo · · Score: 0, Offtopic
      What, hair? It's just protein.

      Did you know that rainforests produce almost as much CO2 due to decomposition as they consume? Their primary function is to strain stuff out of the atmosphere, so they're still useful. Redwood forests are also rainforests, and they release their CO2 again on a longer scale by periodically burning (except they don't do that right now, because of us) which is part of their reproductive cycle.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
  4. Yes, but . . . by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    What you might find truly surprising, however, is that as a rule, large banks actually lose money on these moneymakers--at a rate of about $250 a month per machine. They are, ironically, loss leaders, since banks don't generally charge their own customers if they use the banks' machines.

    Uh, no kidding? Guess what -- tellers cost them money too!

    Obviously, banks make their money on 1) lending out deposits and 2) account fees. Everything else is just designed to get money into the vault, and ATMs are a vastly cheaper way of supporting customers than branches and tellers.

    Actually, it's probably just lending out deposited money that's their real business. My impression is that the account fees function more to weed out unprofitable customers than to make money in their own right.

  5. Last post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    or is it?