FCC: Only We Can Regulate Unlicensed Spectrum

rfc1394 writes "In an article in ComputerWeekly, it was announced that the FCC has ruled that it has final jurisdiction over unlicensed wireless space, meaning that an airport authority can't force airlines to (pay to) use its wireless network and they may set up and use their own. This bodes well for the development of wireless networks in various areas as it means that you have the right to set up your own network even if your landlord would want you to use theirs."

It's just a codename for red tape...

For those of you outside of Massachusetts reading here...

"Massport"... sounds like it's a business or something, but it's just a trendy name for the Massachusetts Port Authority, which is just a branch of the state government trying to sound a little more important than they really are.

Re:It's just a codename for red tape...

Around here Masport is a brand of lawnmower and wood burning solid fuel heater

It's the FCC's bandwidth, not anybody else's

This makes it clear... anybody has the right to operate a WiFi device within the FCC-set limits, and if it bothers your WiFi device then well tough. It's unlicensed, but not unregulated.

It's the public's.

The public owns the airwave, and the FCC just happens to embody the public interest right now. They can be done away with by a vote. In this case, I'm glad they stepped up to the plate and squashed the takeover attempt.

I'm going to go dance in the street.

Not so Fast

I wouldn't get too excited. The FCC has authority derived from the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Technically they have no authority to govern intrastate radio emissions. This has had little challenge in the federal courts up to now, because nobody gave a crap. There was no significant money to be made or lost one way or the other. However, this situation is different. There is significant money at stake. Look for challenges to FCC jurisdiction to spring up. Who knows, maybe a case will make it to the Supreme Court and put the FCC in their place with regards to this issue and similar issues.

Re:Not so Fast

well technically a microscopic portion of every transmission will cross a state line unless directed straight up, if they can grab drugs and fam products because "it could be shipped over state lines" then they could definitely use a technically present but non-detectable amount of EM transmission to keep control of all transmissions

Abolish the FCC?

Why abolish the FCC? They stick up for the little guys, too.

Re:Abolish the FCC?

I remember that Slashdot story [slashdot.org]. And just today, in fact, I was looking around on the FCC's website when I found that they do in fact auction [fcc.gov] off [fcc.gov] some [fcc.gov] of the spectrum [fcc.gov]. Although it's nowhere near enough to fend off monopoly-driven corporations from eating up the entire spectrum, as the author of the original article speculates. Moreso, as the author of the parent comment mentioned, the FCC sticks up for the little guys and the services that wouldn't necessarily be able to fund themselves, such as amateur radio, citizens band, family radio service, instructional television, and other wireless services [fcc.gov].

A Most Excellent decision

I remember being outraged at the petty officialdom thinking that they somehow had exclusive control of the radiowaves around their airport. This is indeed a *Good Thing* and should serve as a reminder to other local fifedoms.

Re:A Most Excellent decision

By extention, this basically says that users are allowed to operate any Part 15 compliant devices anywhere they're allowed to physically possess them... and anybody who wants to resolve conflicts in a high-traffic area must go through the FCC if they want anything more binding than handshakes.

When the FCC gives bandwidth space to the people, it belongs to the people.

Re:A Most Excellent decision

Just wait for the DMCA-related exceptions to start rolling in, late 2005. Once **AA realizes people are setting up unregulated spontaneous exchanges of data, they start trying to find ways to restrict it. Of course, you can always help keep them at bay by supporting the EFF [eff.org]...

Re:A Most Excellent decision

That's where the "allowed to physically possess" part comes in. Your employer can ban all such devices from the premises on the grounds of security. However, they can't tell Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile, and company not to paint their workplace with signal, and they can't put up jamming devices to block signals either.

Re:A Most Excellent decision

However, they can't tell Verizon, Cingular, T-Mobile, and company not to paint their workplace with signal, and they can't put up jamming devices to block signals either.

Not active jamming devices, but I doubt that anyone in their right mind would prosecute someone for building a structure with metal walls. One that just happens to be a Faraday cage and blocks all or most radio signals.

Re:A Most Excellent decision

A full Faraday cage building would most likely be illegal due to lack of windows and doors...

all your frequencies...

are belong to us

Re:all your frequencies...

I cared about hearing other people's opinions a couple years ago. Please stop.

Re:all your frequencies...

That's a 20th centrury view of the world. In today's world, your quote should read

all your codes are belong to us

Freqency division multiplexing (ie. dividing the spectrum into frequency bands) is the old way of doing things. In the 21st century, radio transmission will be done using spatial, frequency and temporal coding (and maybe others).

Using only frequency division multiplexing is like living in a one dimensional world, not realising that the world has at least three dimensions which you can move around in. Correspondingly, in a multidimensional world, it is possible to avoid collisions that would otherwise occur in a one dimensional world. In other words, combining spatial, temporal and frequency coding allows many more users to use the electromagnetic spectrum.

A consequence of such a move is that it is no longer possible to just talk about radio frequencies. It become a more generalised mish-mash involving frequency, time of transmission and location of transmission. Any of these can be used to differentiate a user. A 'code' is a generalised multidimensional version of a frequency.

Welcome flatlanders, to the multidimensional world.

Colleges

Does this mean colleges can't prevent their students from setting up their own wireless networks?

Re:Colleges

Does this mean colleges can't prevent their students from setting up their own wireless networks?

Yes.

Just as the FCC, some years ago, also banned cities and counties from using zoning laws to ban satellite dishes and other legal radio antennas.

Re:Colleges

That is correct. This means that colleges cannot prevent students from setting up their own wireless networks. It doesn't have anything to say about whether students are allowed to connect said wireless network to the college network. Most colleges (any that care whether you set up a wireless network) should have something in their AUP which outlines what you are and are not allowed to plug into their network jacks. If they say "You can only plug individual computers into our network," and you plug in a wireless router, they have every right to suspend your network access privileges.

Re:Colleges

They'll just ban the equipment.

At which point people will set up Linux boxes with wifi cards in them, and run them as APs. I'd like to them try to regulate the physical difference between that and a box with a wifi card that's getting on their network. If they're banning all wireless and just selectively enforcing it if you're not on their network, ask them why they're operating a wireless network if no one is allowed to be on it.

And, of course, nothing says the wireless routers have to be on their property, especially when you're talking about Georgia Tech, a college that does not have 'campus' per se, it's intermingled with the city. If they try to ban wireless access points, people will just set them up inside coffeehouses across the street from the dorm.

A very important question to ask them, in front of witnesses, is if they're trying to ban the equipment, student run networks, or just wireless broadcasting. And after they answer 'C', be sure to explain what 'unregulated' means. Watch them backpeddle.

Can Management at an Expo say no to Wi-Fi

Suppose you are an exhibitor at an expo.

Can the management of the expo say that you cannot hook up a Wi-Fi router to the network that they have a monopoly over in the convention center?

I do appreciate your optimism...

but your landlord can just put the "must use the landlord's wireless network" clause in your lease. You sign away many, many rights when you sign a lease already, this would just be one more.

Re:I do appreciate your optimism...

"prohibit airport authorities from limiting or restricting tenants from implementing and operating a wireless system".

Emphasis mine.

You'll find another clause in your lease that goes something like this:

"If any clause of this contract is found to be void by law it does invalidate other legal clauses."

You see, they recognize that terms of your lease might well be legally unenforcable, void, and if they don't have that clause such could be held to void the entire lease.

You are not bound by void clauses, even if you sign them. Your landlord relies on your ingnorance of this fact to get you to follow the terms he wishes.

This statement by the FCC is that any such clause is void because your landlord has no legal authority to so restrict you, even by contract. It is prohibited.

No, I am not a lawyer, but I am a landlord.

KFG

Re:I do appreciate your optimism...

Actually that's usually not the way it works. Federal law trumps any contract, local or state laws. Consider what happened with cable TV. Apartment complexes tried to say that you couldn't get satellite TV and had to use their cable provider. In the end the FCC ended up ruling that they can't restrict you from installing an antenna. [fcc.gov]

There are very few exceptions to this rule. Legitimate safey regulations (which is very narrowly defined), regulations related to the preservation of properties listed on the National Register of Historic places, you can't damage someone elses property with your antenna (drilling holes in a railing or roof you don't own), reasonable size restrictions, and finally it has to be in your own private space, not a common area.

If you take a look at a lot of apartment complexes these days you'll notice a lot of satellite antennas mounted to buckets sitting on decks. This ruling is why. The apartment complexes hate it, they think they're ugly, but there is nothing they can do about it.

Incidentally this same ruling was ammended to apply to fixed wireless, and yes they do mention Internet access. I don't think it's too difficult to say that this existing ruling already preempts any potential contract clause that you're worried about. At a minimum I think it shows how the FCC would end up ruling on the issue.

I can't seem to find this new ruling online yet. But I wouldn't be surprised if it also already dealt with this issue. I would imagine that the airlines lease included some sort of clause like this.

I forget...

It's monday... so do we hate the evil, censoring FCC, or do we love the wonderful "defender of the rights" FCC? I though the love part was only for the weekends...

What doesn't the FCC have jurisdiction over?

The article says "the FCC has ruled that it has final jurisdiction over unlicensed wireless space"

I think the ruling is a good one, but something about the previous sentence bothers me: I don't like the idea that the FCC can decide what it does and does not control. Does anyone see the potential for abuse? *puts on tinfoil hat*

Re:What doesn't the FCC have jurisdiction over?

I think the ruling is a good one, but something about the previous sentence bothers me: I don't like the idea that the FCC can decide what it does and does not control.

If you don't like it, take 'em to court. The courts CAN tell 'em they're full of hogwash.

But in this case the courts would almost certainly rule that they are right - that congress DID give them that exclusive regulatory authority, and that the supremacy clause extends that authority over the states and their subdivisions.

A bigger issue than it seems...

Opti-Fi Networks [flyairpath.com] has been affected by this a few times. Several port authorities have demanded that we remove our AP's pending their approval, effectively removing competition in these markets. On the other hand, when the port authority runs things, the wireless networks tend to be more designed with the "total package" in mind -- the whole airport is usually wired then, and not just Airtran (In the case of Opti-Fi) gates.

Hey...

Wait, we can just do that now? Sweet! I rule only I have jurisdiction over wire mesh screens! Or did somebody else already call that?

so what?

how much does it cost to monitor and enforce the right?

if FCC has not limited the number of access points that one man can have, the landlord can muscle out its tenant's right easily. Just install as many APs as possible.

we need more geeky lawyers... new jobs!!! :-P

It is April first?!

First we learn that Microsoft is essentially using the BSD open source license. Now the FCC is doing something that is pro-consumer. What gives?!

Cell phone use on airplanes?

So... Only the FCC can regulate the use of the RF spectrum. Okay, clear enough...

What implications does this have for the ubiquitous banning of cell phone use on airplanes (in favor of the much more expensive payphones they have available for passengers who really need to make a call)?

Personally, I've always considered the cell phone ban during flights as nothing short of offensive. Yeah, suuuuure it interferes with their navigation. Hey, guess what, if cell phones interfered with airplane navigation, the very fact that your phone can get a signal (from huge many-megawatt transmitting cell towers) would cause far more problems than the RF output of your sad little portable transmitter (aka "phone").


Any thoughts, from someone who might really know the answer to this? Cell phones now kosher, or no? How about WAPs (ie, networked games between two people with 802.11 on their laptops on the same flight)? How about VOIP, if you can get a signal?

Re:Cell phone use on airplanes?

The cell phones are banned on airplanes because the cell phone providers ASKED for them to be. You see, when you're on the ground, you're visible to usually just a couple of cell towers...when you're a few miles up, you're visible to MANY cell towers, and your phone's power is turned to maximum because you're so far from the towers. It creates all sorts of intereference with users on the ground - if you use your phone in the air, you'd be leaving a trail of dropped calls by other people underneath you.

You know that AirPhone system? That's basically a cell network but with the sites spread far apart so there's no interference. One proposal I've seen is to put a micro-cell on the airplane. It tells everyone's phones to go to a low power mode, which prevents the contact with multiple ground sites, and routes the calls through the AirPhone system those. I'm thinking they would stll charge an arm and a leg for those calls, but that would certainly help minimize the use.

Because beyond the RF issues, the sanity of the other passengers is at stake. People tend to talk loudly to their phones, especially in environments with high background noise - like an airplane. Having a few loud chatty people in an enclosed space with a lot of people trying to read or sleep would be disastrous.

Cellphones DO interfere with avionics.

The GPS and navcom antennas on the exterior of the aircraft are very carefully engineered, installed and tested to work acceptably well in an RF-hostile external environment. The fuselage of an aluminum aircraft is a faraday cage, however, and all the avionics are mounted inside with wiring to their respective antennas also *inside* the fuselage. Any unpredicatable and unpredictably-located RF sources *inside* the fuselage do indeed create all kinds of wild reflected RF harmonics bouncing around all inside the aircraft which have been demonstrated many times to affect the operation of GPS, RNAV/DME and Glideslope receivers, because these receivers are *very* sensitive in order to do their main jobs. That also means they are very sensitive to harmonic RF intererence, phase shift error, etc.
The expensive payphones installed into airliners have been engineered and *EXHAUSTIVELY* tested to weed out any interference with the airliner's avionics. That's about half why they're so expensive to use. Of course, greed is the other reason. If the captain of an aircraft doesn't want you to operate electronic toys on board his aircraft, you must respect his wishes, he *is* the boss after all.

I'm a private pilot and own a small single engine airplane. I have both a small GPS system and an older Loran system to augment my navigation. I also carry my cellphone with me everywhere I fly, but I DO turn it off because I've found out that just being on in standby mode, it will noticeably lessen the Loran's ability to lock onto the ground transmitters. The cellphone operates at near microwave frequencies, the Loran operates at about 100KHz, a rather long wavelength. They are at complete opposite ends of the RF spectrum, yet the interference is plainly observable, most likely caused by RF harmonics messing with the sensitive timing in the Loran.

Re:Cellphones DO interfere with avionics.

Also keep in mind the reason why the cell companies don't want you to be able to call from a plane: cellphones are line-of-sight transmitters.

From 35,000 feet, line of sight covers most of an entire state. That means the cell network on the ground is going to have a heart attack when it discovers "gaah! I'm getting an identical cell signal in 917 different cell zones! What do I do?!"

Basically, the cell network wasn't designed for airborne transmitters. When the cell network was being designed, it was just beyond anybody's imagination that cell phones would someday be so prevalent and pervasive that you'd have hundreds of them on each and every 747 flight.

Yes, I used to work in telecom. Yes, we actually had to deal with this sort of thing on occasion.

Big government

Now thats all fine and good but am i the only one paranoid about the government acquiring more power. I say the government should have three jobs: 1) common defense 2) build roads 3) deliver the mail Thats it no more

Aye, Here's the Rub

Ironically, I've been dealing with this exact situation in airports, but the fight is between the dominating terminal tennant and the authority that controls the terminal/airport.

In short, the Authority controlling the terminal (varies by city/state) wants to control Wireless access to enable 3rd parties to come in (concourse is one of the larger) to sell wireless access with the authority getting profit from the deal.

The Dominating tennant, usually an airline, has quite a bit of say (They're actually responsible for maintaining the facility set forth by the authority), but has been fighting an uphill battle with frequency allocation. In Short, the authority is looking to make money. The dominating tennant is looking for stability. My company operates a 802.11b network throughout a terminal and we were 'assigned' a channel by the dominating tennant. Obviously, I could run on any frequency I choose, but if I did, they'd shutdown my equipment (my antennas are on their roof, in their IDFs, powered by their power, etc.) and prohibit me from operating. They can, kick me out of the terminal if I won't impact them too much (There's a termination for convienence clause in these leases) or, simply over power my network by broadcasting the same SSID and dropping traffic to an VLAN that goes no where.

Yes, the FCC says I have certain rights, but when you choose to co-exist with someone who's ultimately a) paying you and/or b) allowing you to make money, politics plays a huge deal so it's best to work it out peacefully.

Always a gain for WARDRIVING!

It's nice to know that our FCC is looking out for us, even though some of us want to abolish the FCC [slashdot.org].

Of course, this just means more fodder for wardriving!

I recall something about CMU

I recall hearing something (or perhaps I read it) about Carnegie Mellon Unv [cmu.edu] a number of years back (2000 or 2001 perhaps?) about CMY declaring that all the airwaves above their campus are their sole property and can not be legally interfered with by anyone on or off campus. Basically they wanted to ensure that their wireless network had no competition. I'm thinking it was CMU. I haven't been able to find anything about it though in a few minutes of Googling. The FCC's ruling would mean that CMU could no longer declare unlicensed spectrum to be their own for their own exclusive use (or licensing depending on how you look at it). I see this ruling possibly applying to students in a dorm that want to have an AP in their room. The school says no because they are offering their own wireless access. The FCC ruling would say that's a no no. Interesting ruling no matter how you look at it.

citywide networks

I'm also glad for this FCC ruling. After reading about the citywide network [computerworld.com] in Rio Rancho, NM, which has rather hefty subscriber fees ($50/mo for 1 Mb/s), I wondered if authorities were seeking monopolization of WiFi.

This statement from the FAQs [usurf.com] could indicate that: It's important to have the involvement of city government in approving this type of deployment

Why? Maybe if the service were free and tax supported, not subscription based. All they really provide is WiMax routers on lamp poles and the 43 Mb/s backhaul. (You supply your own WiFi card/router.) The disruptive technology [pbs.org] that Cringely extolled recently, regarding Linksys/Sveasoft DIY mesh networks, is much preferable.

What Rio Rancho gets out of the deal is subsidized bandwidth for emergency services, which taxes ought to cover. Now government officials have an interest in suppressing DIY mesh networks. And Rio Rancho is being held up as a model for other communities.

The FCC ruling is very much in the spirit of Open Source.

FCC versus private sector

The ruling applies only to governmental and quasi governmental entities. The private sector can do whatever they please, unless some specific law limits their powers.

So landlords could restrict tenants rights, regardless of what the FCC does.

That's interesting...

The FCC isn't in the job of picking what their job is or isn't.
It wasn't until Reagan deregulated them in terms of commercial length (7 commercial ad time:: 30 air time) such that they could do as they please. Ta-da! infomercials.

Why?

I'm not sure why this is a good thing. If the Massport (people who own and run the airport) want to prohbit the use of other wireless access points in their buildings they should be able to. It's private property. Now if they are prohibiting the use of access points just in random areas where their signals are reaching but they don't own, that's bad. But if they own the house, I see no reason why they can't dictate who runs what in the house.

They've said the same thing about big antennas

Amateur radio operators have put up large antennae on their property drawing the ire of homeowner's associations and sometimes finding themselves at odds with municipal ordinances. The FCC basically said they have the final word on this.

Other paid WiFi access

Wasnt there a story ages back about a baseball park trying to set up for-pay WiFi access and getting mad at some locals who had set up free access that covered the ball park...Guess this would apply there too....

I'm confused....

So today the FCC is good? I thought they were the evil overlords? Damn you folks change your minds more than my wife.

Nice But....

This sounds like a very nice freedom, but think of all the evil that can be done with a unstanderized network.WUAHAHAHA... I am always kinda pessimistic about these things,but Anywho thanks FCC for OPEN WIRELESS BANDWIDTH !!!

Re:Yes but...

"It's funny. Laugh."

I'm laughing at you, not with you.