
FCC planning to open up 1200 MHz of spectrum for unlicensed / Wi-Fi usage [pdf] - tradertef
https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-363451A1.pdf
======
ksec
Other than the 1200Mhz [0] from the 6Ghz Band, the requirement of 6Ghz
Certification ( New WiFi Chip, Antenna, and FCC Certs ) means that WiFi 6E
brings opportunity to fix everything that went wrong with WiFi 6.

The Current WiFi 6 clients and router have OFDMA problems, some are not turned
on by default, some require firmware upgrade which you can guarantee wont
happen with lots of users, many do not support 80+80Mhz / 160Mhz.

Without some of these features, current WiFi 6 / 802.11ax is nothing more than
WiFi 5.5 or a slightly improved 802.11ac Wave 2.

I hope next generation WiFi6E client [1] and Router fixes all these problems.

[0] 1200Mhz only in US, Europe and UK are only getting 500Mhz and are on
similar time frame with US. No idea on the scheduled in rest of the work.

[1] [https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/wireless-lan-
blue...](https://www.broadcom.com/products/wireless/wireless-lan-
bluetooth/bcm4389)

~~~
stefan_
It just hit me that all of what is now sold as WiFi 6 does not in fact have a
6 GHz radio. The incompetence is breathtaking, it's been a year since they
revamped all of their naming and it's already fucked again.

~~~
willidiots
The intent of "Wi-Fi 6" is to start versioning Wi-Fi numerically (i.e. the
next major rev will be Wi-Fi 7) instead of the IEEE's ever-lengthening 802.11
alphabet soup.

It's just a coincidence that we're also talking about 6 GHz at the same time.
No formal relation.

~~~
sneak
Then why is GP referring to 6E? Sounds like more alphabet soup, to me.

~~~
freehunter
That’s actually fairly standard naming in networking, like cat5 cables, cat5e
is cat5 but after fixing a few bugs in the standard. Cat6 came out later and
supersedes cat5 and cat5e.

Think of it like 6.1 instead of 6E. Minor revision to the existing standard.

~~~
tradertef
Partially true. 6E is specific to 6GHz and not a revision of Wi-Fi 6.

------
Taniwha
The real question is really "why isn't most of the spectrum like this?" \-
people sharing it rather than it being sold off to private holders to be owned

~~~
wahern
To understand the thinking find a copy of the 1959 paper "The Federal
Communications Commission" by Ronald Coase. See
[https://www.jstor.org/stable/724927](https://www.jstor.org/stable/724927)
(pay-walled). It's the thesis behind the modern property-rights spectrum
regime, and has bled over into many other federal regulatory regimes.

As interpreted by many modern, mostly conservative, regulators and scholars,
the idea is that by giving private property rights in spectrum you incentivize
not only more efficient usage through price signaling, but you incentivize
research & development into more efficient technologies.

There's plenty to critique, especially as it applies to spectrum. See, for
example, the famous Salon.com article summarizing David Reed's arguments: "The
myth of interference" (2003),
[https://www.salon.com/2003/03/12/spectrum/](https://www.salon.com/2003/03/12/spectrum/)
But if you want to understand your adversaries' thinking, Coase's paper is the
place to start.

~~~
ohazi
> incentivize not only more efficient usage through price signaling, but you
> incentivize research & development into more efficient technologies.

As with software patents, I think there's an argument to be made that this is
no longer true. Digital modulation schemes are leagues more efficient than
older analog techniques, both in terms of power and bandwidth. Spread spectrum
schemes in particular are even reasonably resistant to being plopped on top of
each other.

The spectrum ownership scheme allows established players to sit around on
their asses using loud, inefficient modulation schemes with huge dead zones in
between channels because they don't need to do any better than that.

I think radio technology would be better across the board if spectrum were
open, and if people had to compete by using better, more efficient, more
interference-immune modulation schemes, or risk getting stepped on by someone
else. If we had a system like this, the noise floor would just slowly increase
in heavily used parts of the spectrum, rather than what we have now, which is
a whole bunch of legally mandated quiet zones punctuated by huge narrow
carrier spikes.

The technology to do this exists... you can go buy a broadband SDR and put
together a system like this in GNU radio fairly quickly for experimental
purposes, but it's not really legal to actually _use_ this anywhere.

~~~
namibj
The thing is, that the QoS and power efficiency of e.g. LTE isn't attainable
if you have uncontrolled interference. It's a general issue with far-side
crosstalk.

~~~
wahern
Interference is largely a property of the specific scheme. 5G schemes are
better than LTE when comparing apples-to-apples (e.g. aggregate bandwidth on
the same bands in the same geographic area), whatever comes after 5G will
continue moving the ball forward, and the theoretical limitations on how much
further we can keep kicking the ball are still out of sight.

Thus the question isn't what regulatory regime is best for squeezing the most
out of LTE, but rather what's the optimal pace of radio communications
evolution and how to achieve it. That's a drastically different type of
question that almost certainly has a drastically different answer, or at least
a much more complex answer.

~~~
namibj
Then make it so that frequencies don't get blocked for this long. Make it so
that a company has to re-bid every once in a while for spectrum.

Instead of just giving it away or making it all free-reign.

------
nisa
Good. Let's see if this actually happens and if Europe follows (I doubt the
whole 1200MHz are free here, at least not on paper)

The big fuckup of almost every regulatory body around the world was to not
unlicence the analogue tv-whitespace in the 600-800MHz band.

At this frequency it's possible to build reliable local mesh networks. 802.11
is horrible inefficient through - why not mandating some open new standard
with better usage of the bandwidth? It would still be a big win for a lot of
communities.

But LTE happened and there was a lot of money to be made to sell the spectrum
to big corps...

~~~
tradertef
802.11 is inefficient? What are you talking about. It is more efficient than
cellular systems in terms of bits/second/Hertz. Unlicensed does not mean
inefficient.

Europe is targeting 500 MHz towards the end of this year.

~~~
nisa
> 802.11 is inefficient?

CSMA/CA basically says: hear a few milliseconds if someone else is sending
something and if not send yourself - this is a problem with noise and lot's of
networks. LTE assigns timeslots and can omit the problems - there are better
solutions now than CSMA/CA like OFDMA¹

[https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-
ofdma-a-...](https://www.networkworld.com/article/3315056/why-is-ofdma-a-
magical-feature-in-the-802-11ax-standard.html)

------
ohazi
At 6 GHz. This is super exciting. I have a huge backlog of fun wideband radio
projects (radar, spread spectrum, etc.) that I've never been motivated enough
to start because it would technically be illegal.

~~~
eqvinox
This does nothing to make your projects legal. "Open" spectrum like this only
allows you to operate certified devices where the vendor made some assurance
that they actually stick to their band and power limit, and don't interfere on
some random harmonic.

To build your projects you need a ham license, and if you have that you have
the ham allocations.

~~~
segfaultbuserr
> _This does nothing to make your projects legal. "Open" spectrum like this
> only allows you to operate certified devices where the vendor_

Yes, most radio transmitters are certificated (including Part 15 transmitters
like Wi-Fi routers), but homebrew devices should still be possible under Part
15 without certification. Part 15 allows the use of unlicensed radio
transmitters built for personal use, not marketed, not constructed from a kit,
and built in quantities of five or less, without going through the process of
certification by regulators. See [0].

However, whether it can be implemented within the technical requirement and
limitation of Part 15 is another question. Usually, Part 15 is very limited,
it may or may not be usable for your project, unlike the amateur radio service
(Part 97), which is a more powerful service.

> _actually stick to their band and power limit, and don 't interfere on some
> random harmonic. To build your projects you need a ham license._

Same for ham. The only difference is that certification by a regulator is not
needed, and the technical standards that need to be satisfied is different,
but regardless of what service you operate in, you must test your equipment by
yourself to ensure the technical requirements are not violated.

[0] [https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/1016/what-are-the-
us...](https://ham.stackexchange.com/questions/1016/what-are-the-us-rules-
about-unlicensed-low-power-transmissions)

~~~
eqvinox
Admittedly I'm hazy on the details, I just stowed away the bottom line ;).

AFAIR what it boils down to is that if you have a ham license, there is a
presumption that you know to some extent what you're doing (15.15.a?); so if
you do break something it probably makes the distinction between "reckless"
and "accidental".

Honestly if you do it well the question won't come up. So either you learn
your shit well enough for it to not matter, or you get the ham license for
insurance at the cost of at least proving you got the gist down. _shrug_ :)

~~~
myself248
You don't need a ham license to build and operate things under Part 15.23.
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.23](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/47/15.23)

------
etaioinshrdlu
The practical impact to my knowledge is very high bit rate communications
(many gigabits?) at short distances and indoors.

~~~
ksec
On a 2x2 160Mhz capable devices you are looking at 2.4Gbps, that in real world
should be closer to 1.6Gbps.

So not really _many_ gigabits, but good enough for most of us.

------
fulafel
Is this going to become a widely adopted Wifi/etc band or is it US-only?

~~~
eqvinox
Your guess is as good as anyone's; it's US-only but I would expect some other
countries / regions to follow for at least part of the band if not all of it.

------
wyldfire
Do most routers and other wifi devices need a new frontend to leverage the new
band? Or could they conceivably receive a firmware update to unlock this?

~~~
tradertef
New front-end hardware is required. Bunch of companies already announced
equipment availability.

------
wahern
I'm curious how Ajit Pai squares his faith in the property rights-based Coase
Theorem approach to spectrum management with increasing the unlicensed bands.
It's probably a dissonance a politician (despite his background, that's what
Pai effectively is, now) can't be bothered with.

~~~
tastygreenapple
What's the dissonance? By granting the public the rights to use more spectrum,
one can imagine greater adoption and usage of the spectrum.

~~~
wahern
Well, here's a dissenting opinion by Pai from several years ago where he
opposes unlicensed usage of UHF white space spectrum.
[https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-68A2.pd...](https://apps.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-15-68A2.pdf)

The cynic in me notes that unlicensed, Mhz-range spectrum would have been a
game changer and created a serious challenge to incumbent cellphone and
broadband companies. Unlike Mhz spectrum, the 5Ghz spectrum he mentions (as an
alternative) in that old opinion and the 6Ghz spectrum in the recent notice is
limited to private usage within a building. You can't do anything long range,
not even from down the block--at least not in a commercially viable way. Using
unlicensed Mhz spectrum you could provide competitive broadband directly from
the street (if not further), removing all the expense of leasing or running
wires to people's homes or paying extremely costly fees to incumbent cellphone
companies.

I reconsider what I said about dissonance: there is none. His past and current
positions are consonant with the view that rivalrous spectrum usage is best
resolved by auctioning private property rights in spectrum--the classic Coase
approach. By effectively being limited to within structures, 6Ghz spectrum
isn't rivalrous even from a person in Pai's perspective.

Note: I went to George Mason Law school which has a faculty that's extremely
active in the FCC spectrum debate, and I know Pai is intellectually (and in
some cases personally) friendly with some of that faculty. The faculty are
vehement advocates for private spectrum auctions. I've had more than one
intense debate advocating for more unlicensed spectrum usage and none of them
were the least bit kind to that approach. But that was 10 years ago; perhaps
opinions have softened since then.

------
jeppesen-io
This is fantastic. For urban living, in appartments, 5Ghz is great in part
because of the shorter range.

Roughly speaking, how many WIFI chanels does 1200 Mhz give? How does this
compare to 5Ghz?

~~~
zaroth
Historically the channels were 20MHz. More recently 40MHz and I don’t know if
ac goes wider?

1200MHz of bandwidth is _a lot_.

~~~
dboreham
80MHz is common, 160MHz exists.

------
kingbirdy
> the full 1,200-megahertz available in the 6 GHz band

Can someone explain this to me? Doesn't 1 GHz = 1,000 MHz?

~~~
ChuckMcM
One is frequency, the other is bandwidth. So 1.2 GHz of band width in the 6GHz
band.

The actual frequency band is 5.925 GHz to 7.125GHz[1] which is 1.2GHz from
bottom to top (that is how "wide" the band is)

That spectrum is broken up into channels that can be up to 160 MHz wide which
allows for a lot of data all at once, but 6 GHz has an even harder time
getting through walls and stuff than 5 GHz does do don't think of it easily
covering your house.

[1]
[https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354364A1.pdf](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-354364A1.pdf)

~~~
snapetom
> but 6 GHz has an even harder time getting through walls and stuff than 5 GHz
> does

I was under the impression that the higher the frequency, the more energy the
wave has, and thus does a better job of passing through walls. Is that
incorrect?

~~~
solotronics
It's actually the opposite. Shortwave (3-30Mhz) goes around the world whereas
a high frequency such as 5G (5Ghz) cell data you have to have a node on every
light pole.

Shortwave is 100 to 10 meters wavelength compared to 5G which has wavelengths
measured in millimeters.

~~~
DeathArrow
A radio station emitting long waves can be heard almost anywhere on earth.
With poor quality, of course. I used to listen to radio stations at 20 000 km
away for fun.

~~~
mdszy
With a decent enough antenna setup, the quality isn't poor. I've had stations
come in super clear from eastern europe while I was sitting in southwest
Wisconsin using an antenna that was just a bunch of speaker wire thrown up
into a tree.

------
zeckalpha
Title is a bit misleading, this is not about
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-centimeter_band](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-centimeter_band)

~~~
tradertef
Title does say "of", 1200 MHz of spectrum. It does not say in 1200 MHz band.

------
rmac
the real question is "when"

i've lost faith over the years after buying into whitespace and cbrs; when
neither happened in meaningful ways. The FCC is a shitshow

~~~
tradertef
Formally be approved on April 23. New devices should be available late summer.

CBRS and TVWS requires database which takes many years to craft.

------
jokoon
Would that allow SDR?

If yes, that would be a game changer...

------
oliv__
Great, some more wifi to add to the electrosmog soup we already live in. When
are we going to start taking into account the health effects?

~~~
lawnchair_larry
We already do. There aren’t any.

~~~
cesarb
To be pedantic, there are the thermal effects, which is why the EIRP is
limited to a number low enough that the normal blood circulation can take away
the extra heat, even in more sensitive parts like the eyes.

