Wi-Fi Routers - The Differences for Each Region?

Wi-Fi Wonderer asks: "I've been wondering what the difference is between the different regions that can be set on a Wi-Fi router? I know the region determines which channels are available, but I can't find any concrete information on anything else. Do regional settings also determine power output, bandwidth, and/or encryption mechanisms? If you are in a Wi-Fi dense area does it make sense (legal ramifications aside) to choose a different regional setting so as to avoid interference? Will one region give a greater broadcast range than another? Is there any documented information on exactly what configuration settings go with each region?"

Comments

It's hardly a secret

[Anonymous Coward]

United States uses channels 1-11, Europe uses 1-13, and Japan uses 14. Changing it won't get you anything, as most people use 1, 6, and 11, and 13 isn't far enough from 11 to save you from other user inteference.

Google is your friend.

Just use 11a, if you can

[Bretai]

Products sold in the U.S. will generally fix the behavior to conform to U.S. rules, and if the Country Code can be changed at all, it probably won't change the operation to add more channels or more power. APs from countries other than US and Japan are usually more flexible.

Some differences:
FCC(US) limits average tx power to 27dBm on 1-11
ETSI(Europe) has a limit of 20dBm on 1-13, although individual countries could add further restrictions.
MKK(Japan) 20dBm on 1-14

In 11a, there are greater differences:
FCC - 17dBm on 36,40,44,48, 23dBm on 52,56,60,64, 30dBm on 149,153,157,161,165
ETSI - 20dBm on 36-64 and 27dBm on 100-140
MKK - 23dBm on 34,38,42,46 and possibly 20dBm on 100-140 plus a few other odd lower channels.

The actual rules are too extensive to list and they're constantly changing. If you have an older 11a Access Point, you might only see channels 36, 40, 44, and 48 available. Another big factor to consider is DFS. DFS applies to channels 52-64 and 100-140. It requires the AP to switch channels immediately when it detects a radio signal that might be Radar, and the user is not allowed to return to that channel for 30 minutes. Client devices must passively scan for APs and APs must scan the channel for radar for 1 minute before starting operation on that channel. The US is adding DFS requirements in July 2006. Fortunately they're adding the 100-140 channel range at the same time, so it's not all bad.

You might think that the upper channels (149-165) are ideal for higher power and no DFS, but I think that is the range that get interference from 5.8GHz cordless phones. I'd go with 52-64 pre-DFS rules. 11a has less range, but that also means less neighbor interference. There is less channel overlap. No microwave oven interference. There are no 11b stations to trigger 11b protection modes, or God forbid, a concurrent 11b user on the same AP as you. Most importantly, there are still fewer users of 11a. Where I live, I have neighbors across all of the 11b/g channels, but just a couple on 11a, so I can find an unused channel all to myself. This is much more important than any B.S. Speedburning, RangeMaxing, Super features which have always under-delivered with performance.

Anyway, I think you can see that the U.S. rules are pretty good, so there's not much reason to set the wrong country and violate FCC rules... unless you like that sort of thing.