The Fight Over A New Wi-Fi Channel

[Megalith]

There is progress being made in opening up a reserved Wi-Fi channel for the general population. However, companies such as Microsoft and Google are rejecting it: it may interfere with Bluetooth, and there is also the fact that Globalstar would fully control it.

If Globalstar gets its way, Wi-Fi users in the U.S. will have one more channel, which could reduce congestion and improve performance. But both their mobile devices and the hotspots they use would need firmware upgrades to take advantage of the new frequency, and the channel wouldn’t necessarily be open to everyone. Globalstar’s plan is to make a fourth channel available in the unlicensed, often crowded 2.4GHz band used for Wi-Fi in the U.S. While users in some other countries have been enjoying this channel for years, part of it has been set aside in the U.S. as a guard band to protect Globalstar’s satellite frequencies. The company wants to use that guard band for a Wi-Fi-based service instead. Most Wi-Fi devices in the U.S. could be modified to tap into the extra channel.

 

[Dwango]

I'm not really seeing an outcry for more space on the 2.4GHz band. More and more devices are moving to 5GHz and beyond and as that happens the 2.4GHz space will naturally open up. Adding one more channel isn't going to help anything.

 

[bman212121]

So the end result would really be, your device will be able to use this channel if your device maker pays a royalty fee for using Globalstar's band. That's what I'm getting out of this. Some people would be able to take advantage of it, but the whole point of unlicensed spectrum it to make it universal. Image if you bought a router and wanted to set it to use that band. 2 of your devices will work with it, 2 won't. You'd be unable to make use of it because it will break the functionality of your device.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

Hurray for buying international Wi-Fi gear and not even having to deal with the US frequency allotments - those extra frequencies outside what the typical US mandated frequencies are sure do come in handy in situations of severe congestion like where I live with an apartment building that has:

- 47 APs surrounding me that aren't on property (downtown Las Vegas and what I can pick up from my apartment)

- 31 APs from residents that have their own Cox Cable service/routers on both 2.4 and 5.2 GHz

- my apartment building provides Wi-Fi service using a mesh network with 20 more APs so basically almost 100 signals all fighting for what's available in the 2.4 and 5.2 GHz ranges and there is a ton of overlap and horrible interference as expected.

But, that's not an issue for me and a neighbor who split the cost of Cox Cable service monthly.

 

[Sycraft]

I'm not really seeing an outcry for more space on the 2.4GHz band. More and more devices are moving to 5GHz and beyond and as that happens the 2.4GHz space will naturally open up. Adding one more channel isn't going to help anything.

Thing is 2.4GHz penetrates walls better. Frequency and range are inversely related more or less. As extreme examples you have signals in the realm of 400THz which is an IR laser that can be stopped by a sheet of paper, or signals in the realm of 76Hz where the US Project ELF system operated can penetrate the entire world and communicate with submarines under water. So the reason to want 2.4GHz WiFi is the same reason why cell carriers want 700MHz (as opposed to 1900MHz or 2100MHz) LTE: Better penetration of walls. If you set up a dual band AP and measure the signals, you'll find that as you move room to room in general the 2.4GHz range will get better SNR farther away.

 

[XenIneX]

Hurray for buying international Wi-Fi gear and not even having to deal with the US frequency allotments - those extra frequencies outside what the typical US mandated frequencies are sure do come in handy in situations of severe congestion like where I live with an apartment building that has:

- 47 APs surrounding me that aren't on property (downtown Las Vegas and what I can pick up from my apartment)

- 31 APs from residents that have their own Cox Cable service/routers on both 2.4 and 5.2 GHz

- my apartment building provides Wi-Fi service using a mesh network with 20 more APs so basically almost 100 signals all fighting for what's available in the 2.4 and 5.2 GHz ranges and there is a ton of overlap and horrible interference as expected.

But, that's not an issue for me and a neighbor who split the cost of Cox Cable service monthly.

If you don't mind the risk of a suit from the FCC showing up on your doorstep to hand you a $15,000 fine for unlicensed transmitter operation, then have a ball.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

I'm not that one that owns the router. But I suppose my mini-PCI Wi-Fi card could qualify to get me some trouble, I just don't give a fuck at this point, and I have a Ham aka Amateur Radio license so technically I am legally allowed to use this hardware, go figure.

 

[XenIneX]

I'm not that one that owns the router. But I suppose my mini-PCI Wi-Fi card could qualify to get me some trouble, I just don't give a fuck at this point, and I have a Ham aka Amateur Radio license so technically I am legally allowed to use this hardware, go figure.

AFAIK, the band plan only allows up to 2.45ghz in that spectrum block, which disallows anything above channel 6(-ish) under HAM rules.

Also, having to run unencrypted and with your callsign as your SSID to comply with the rules is all kinds of nope as far as I'm concerned. Sure, let me do online banking on an unencrypted network who's name can be used to trivially look up my contact info; would you like my SSN while you're at it?

 

[Deleted member 245375]

As I said, I don't own the router so that's just not a concern for me and the owner is well aware of the FCC regs and doesn't give a shit either. Some things are actually important in life, us using a few frequencies in the manner in which we're using them is simply not one of those situations (personal opinion as it is). If someone from the FCC comes knocking and can show proof of us breaking a law or laws we'll worry about it if and when that time ever comes.

This whole situation we've created was done with a lot of forethought from the actual hardware to the connection itself: we both use VPNs on top of using WPA2 (not that WPA2 is all that secure but our 2048 bit VPN service is damned well is) so not a concern for me/us at all. If someone is that god damned desperate to hack not only the WPA2 circuit but also the VPN circuit then I suppose my info is really valuable for some reason.

Anyway, we're off-topic now going into the personal side of things so, with that I move on.

 

[rat]

Hurray for buying international Wi-Fi gear and not even having to deal with the US frequency allotments - those extra frequencies outside what the typical US mandated frequencies are sure do come in handy in situations of severe congestion like where I live with an apartment building that has:

- 47 APs surrounding me that aren't on property (downtown Las Vegas and what I can pick up from my apartment)

- 31 APs from residents that have their own Cox Cable service/routers on both 2.4 and 5.2 GHz

- my apartment building provides Wi-Fi service using a mesh network with 20 more APs so basically almost 100 signals all fighting for what's available in the 2.4 and 5.2 GHz ranges and there is a ton of overlap and horrible interference as expected.

But, that's not an issue for me and a neighbor who split the cost of Cox Cable service monthly.

In a not-quite-as-dense-as-the-rest-of-the-city area of chicago. I left a wifi scanning app open overnight and woke up to over 280 SSIDs found. Just from my nightstand near the window. 2.4Ghz is absolutely useless where I am. 3 SSIDs on 5Ghz. Given that even 5Ghz is rather limited in the number of channels you can use per region... what we really need is a spread of spectrum that allows for at LEAST 50 non-overlapping channels to really begin to put a dent into this problem.

 

[Deleted member 245375]

Yeah, if I step out onto my balcony area and use a tool like WIGLE on my smartphone (which I've been contributing to for the better part of a decade now) and just stand there for 5-10 minutes it'll end up pulling in close to 300 APs like you but of course that's just the reception of the AP and that can happen at great distances. Making an actual connection with them is not really a possibility - not just because pretty much all of them are finally using proper encryption - a few years ago there were still a majority of WEP APs believe it or not - because of distance/etc but I can detect 'em so yeah, "the airwaves are pretty full" would be a good description of things.

There's no real shortage of frequencies out there and better technologies are on the horizon but, Wi-Fi is so ingrained now that something new coming along with have an uphill climb as the saying goes. I still haven't moved to 11ac just yet, the neighbor and I have discussed it but the costs for the moment are still a bit high and it's not like it'll really help us. We've also considered bumping to the gigabit service from Cox but, we're content with the "Premiere" service at 150Mbps and haven't had any issues aside from Cox recently bumping the speed from 100 to 150 but keeping the cap at 700GB - they should have bumped that to an even terabyte with the speed increase but they didnt so, we typically push over 700GB just to send 'em a message of sorts.

 

[daglesj]

Was a big user of virtually never used channel 13 till I went fully 5Ghz for all my gear several years ago.

UK user here so perfectly legal.

 

[Dwango]

Thing is 2.4GHz penetrates walls better. Frequency and range are inversely related more or less. As extreme examples you have signals in the realm of 400THz which is an IR laser that can be stopped by a sheet of paper, or signals in the realm of 76Hz where the US Project ELF system operated can penetrate the entire world and communicate with submarines under water. So the reason to want 2.4GHz WiFi is the same reason why cell carriers want 700MHz (as opposed to 1900MHz or 2100MHz) LTE: Better penetration of walls. If you set up a dual band AP and measure the signals, you'll find that as you move room to room in general the 2.4GHz range will get better SNR farther away.

Oh I'm well aware of all that. I have a couple of 900MHz transceivers capable of transmitting data for huge distances (just not at great speeds). But adding one more channel to 2.4GHz wifi doesn't help in the ways that Globalstar is trying to claim that it will. They're attempting a royalty grab for an established technology. More common consumer items are moving to 5GHz for the increased speeds and soon I imagine we'll have "in room" wifi that will be able to hit incredible speeds, provided there's not a wall between you and the base station. All of that is freeing up the 2.4GHz band for other things already.

 

[Poseur]

It's almost as if wired connections have benefits. So many people automatically ignore the ethernet port and just start turning on wireless, for no reason.

 

[Ocellaris]

It's almost as if wired connections have benefits. So many people automatically ignore the ethernet port and just start turning on wireless, for no reason.

In cases where people have 100+ APs in the area, they are often in apartments they don't own so running wires through the walls is a pain in the ass

 

[Ranulfo]

In cases where people have 100+ APs in the area, they are often in apartments they don't own so running wires through the walls is a pain in the ass

Buy color matching cables and tack them to the walls or the plastic runners etc..

 

[Dreamerbydesign]

As I said, I don't own the router so that's just not a concern for me and the owner is well aware of the FCC regs and doesn't give a shit either. Some things are actually important in life, us using a few frequencies in the manner in which we're using them is simply not one of those situations (personal opinion as it is). If someone from the FCC comes knocking and can show proof of us breaking a law or laws we'll worry about it if and when that time ever comes.

Yea thats all fine and dadny except now youve basically admitted to doing this publicly. If you think the internet and forums are not places the government peaks and filters using algo's, you are wrong.

 

[bman212121]

In a not-quite-as-dense-as-the-rest-of-the-city area of chicago. I left a wifi scanning app open overnight and woke up to over 280 SSIDs found. Just from my nightstand near the window. 2.4Ghz is absolutely useless where I am. 3 SSIDs on 5Ghz. Given that even 5Ghz is rather limited in the number of channels you can use per region... what we really need is a spread of spectrum that allows for at LEAST 50 non-overlapping channels to really begin to put a dent into this problem.

The problem comes back to bandwidth. With 5ghz N, there is a possibility of using up to 24 different channels if they are 20mhz wide.

The 5-GHz band has a total of 24 channels with 20- MHz bandwidth available

Understanding Wireless Radio Channels - Technical Documentation - Support - Juniper Networks

That's all well and good, but in reality on N people are probably using 40mhz wide channels not 20mhz channels. that brings that number down to 12. Now with the adoption of 802.11ac you can use 80mhz and even 160mhz wide channels. So in theory that would be six 80mhx and 3 160mhz channels that are non overlapping in order to cover the bandwidth requirements. I'm not actually sure if it's possible to configure that many channels due to how they are laid out.

So we could easily throw 50 more channels of x size against the problem, but someone will come up with a way to combine them back together and we'll be in the same boat again. What needs to happen is we need to start making better use of each individual channel. The amount of bandwidth should be similar for a 4 x 4 stream at 20mhz wide as it is for 1 x 1 at 80mhz wide. There is a penalty for space / battery life and cost doing it this way, hence why manufacturer's aren't doing it. That's where wave 2 of ac comes into play though, it's attempting to take those crappy 1 antenna devices and combine them together to allow them all to transmit at the same time. What should happen is the amount of bandwidth used per device should go back down to say 20 or 40mhz, because in reality the efficiency will be better as a whole. The amount of overhead for those 280 devices is going to kill all the bandwidth, where simply splitting them up into smaller groups will provide more bandwidth for all. (Which probably will never happen because it would mean someone would have to give something up even if it's only theoretically better and not actually better depending upon the situation)

 

[Sycraft]

The problem comes back to bandwidth. With 5ghz N, there is a possibility of using up to 24 different channels if they are 20mhz wide./QUOTE]

There is an additional issue though and that is that a large amount of those channels are shared with other things. So you have to only channels 36-48 and 149-161 that are clear and can be used in all cases. Basically, 2 blocks of 802.11ac when using their whole 160mhz setup. All the rest from 50-144 have to be "DFS" meaning "get off this channel if you detect non-WiFi stuff on it." Ok, fair enough, the spectrum is still usually clear so you can use it right? Ya, but because of the issues, a lot of gear does't support it. You find many routers and APs only do the lower and upper bands and just ignore the DFS bands.

Net effect is that on a lot of consumer gear, there's 2 non-overlapping ac bands available and that's it.

 

[N4CR]

I remember seeing this on some new German routers from an ISP last year. They had auto frequency scanning to find least congestion and you could enable the 'hidden' band (channel 0 or something) for inter-router communications and other supported devices. Made me wonder what it was for but this make some sense now. Most older devices couldn't see it on that channel, only a few could. Was a Fritzbox from memory.


edit: may have been some rooted wrt54gs? Can't remember sorry!

 

[tazeat]

This could be really cool, an extra 4th band that 99% of the general population won't be using is great for us nerds . 2.4GHz seems to work far better for things like mobile devices with mediocre wifi antennas/power. Much better through walls and much better range. Sure 3x3 or better AC 5GHz gets better speeds, but I'm on my phone, who cares if I only get <50Mbit? All my other devices are om3 or copper, so they don't even care anyway.