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Wireless Networking The Courts

Court Upholds FCC's Decision To Reallocate Part of 5.9 GHz Band For Unlicensed Use, Including Wi-Fi (fiercewireless.com) 18

The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit on Friday upheld the FCC's decision to reallocate part of the 5.9 GHz band for unlicensed use -- rather than the dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) it was originally allocated for. "This is part of the spectrum that in 1999 was set aside exclusively for the auto industry to use for DSCR to improve auto safety," notes Fierce Wireless. "At that time, the full amount set aside was 75 megahertz." From the report: After about 20 years, nothing ever really came of DSRC, and in 2020, the FCC divvied up the 75 megahertz, making 45 megahertz available for unlicensed use with the remaining 30 megahertz designated for auto safety. Specifically, the auto safety spectrum was reallocated for Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C-V2X) technology, a more modern tech than DSRC. The Intelligent Transportation Society of America and American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials didn't like the FCC's decision and appealed, arguing that it violated the Transportation Equity Act. They also said the FCC unlawfully revoked or modified FCC licenses. But Circuit Court Judge Justin Walker said it did not violate the act and said the court disagreed with the transportation officials' arguments "on all fronts."
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Court Upholds FCC's Decision To Reallocate Part of 5.9 GHz Band For Unlicensed Use, Including Wi-Fi

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  • by King_TJ ( 85913 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @05:50PM (#62795075) Journal

    It's obvious to me that more people make use of wi-fi than they would some automotive wireless communications system intended for safety, EVEN if the industry had gone forward with something using it. Like the article says, the standard for vehicle communications has evolved to be cellular technology at this point. And we clearly need more wireless frequency spectrum. (Go to any congested city office tower and see how many SSIDs there are, all competing to broadcast in the same limited spectrum.)

    • More specifically we need more bands without DFS.

    • Go to any congested city office tower and see how many SSIDs there are, all competing to broadcast in the same limited spectrum.

      Do what, now, city boy? I'm not sure this is a common problem.

  • by msauve ( 701917 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @06:08PM (#62795101)
    Use it or lose it.
  • How much bandwidth in the 5.9 GHz are we talking about here? Somebody was saying 75 Mhz. If it's true man, that is fucking lame. I don't want it. That's enough for how many new wifi channels? 2 or 3? At that point, what in the fuck?! Keep your fucking dick diet skinny bandwidth. Give me some real fucking bandwidth you FCC jerks!

    • So instead of having a few more channels available on a technology that everyone uses, you would rather it's empty and reserved for some shit that hasn't been developed in 20 years?

      I dare you to make less sense.

  • by subreality ( 157447 ) on Tuesday August 16, 2022 @06:31PM (#62795161)

    Here's what the 5GHz spectrum looks like now: https://d2cpnw0u24fjm4.cloudfr... [cloudfront.net]

    As I understand it, right now we can use up to channel 165 without restrictions, and up to 169 with limited power, indoors-only. This change will open it up to the top of channel 177, indoors-only.

    While it's a relatively narrow slice, it's an important one. Several channels on the high end which were only usable for 20MHz can now be opened up wider: 40MHz @167, 175; 80MHz @171, and 160MHz @163. This will be very valuable for low-power, indoor networks.

  • So what happens if the dodgy no name router from China begins spilling into the part of the band used by auto saftey systems? Are there any guard bands between the UL and auto saftey frequencies?

    • > So what happens if the dodgy no name router from China begins spilling into the part of the band used by auto saftey systems? Are there any guard bands between the UL and auto saftey frequencies?

      Are you saying "auto safety systems" don't do noise rejection?

      That would be unsafe.

  • Because if you live in a city, you will find that the 2.4 WiFi band is absolutely swamped with bullshit with names like "ALIEN_INVESTIGATIONS_OFFICE" and "suck my dick" and even your mobile hotspot that's right next to you may fail to connect. 5ghz is much cleaner and unused, and I suspect that's because most users don't know how to set their gear to use 5ghz and most Internet of Crap devices can't even make use of 5ghz.

    • 5ghz is much cleaner and unused, and I suspect that's because most users don't know how to set their gear to use 5ghz and most Internet of Crap devices can't even make use of 5ghz.

      I suspect it's just because the cheapest stuff is all 2.4 GHz only. It's not because they don't know how to set their gear to use 5 GHz because if your router does that, it will do it automatically unless you turn it off.

    • 2.4 also penetrates solid barriers far better than 5ghz, so you're going to see signals from farther away. In a dense urban environment, that means seeing more networks, because radio densities are higher.

      The good news is that it doesn't matter how many networks you see at once - what matters is what channel they're on. If they are all shitty equipment they're probably all in channel 6, so you can set your network to 3 or 9 and have an empty channel and they don't matter at all unless you are looking at t

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