RE: Re(4): [67ATTENDEES] IETF 67 Network goes down at 12:00

The legal set of 5 GHz channel frequencies assigned for 802.11 WLAN
operations in Japan are completely disjoint from those in the USA. These
frequency assignments are not under the control of the vendor, or even the
IEEE, but are made by the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications in
Japan, and the Federal Communications Commission in the USA.

As the 5 GHz band is not assigned to WLANs on a primary basis, but shared
with other country-specific services such as satellite downlinks and
microwave landing systems, it is not surprising that different countries
have different regulations concerning this band. I think vendors are
prohibited from allowing their customers to switch frequency sets at will -
that is, a laptop sold in Japan is only allowed to see the Japanese
frequency set. Otherwise, a consumer device could wind up causing serious
interference to licensed services, even though inadvertent.

Just one of the many interesting wireless pitfalls ...

- Tom A.

-----Original Message-----
From: Markus Stenberg [mailto:mstenber@cisco.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 14, 2006 5:18 PM
To: Tim Chown
Cc: 67attendees@ietf.org
Subject: Re: Re(4): [67ATTENDEES] IETF 67 Network goes down at 12:00

Tim Chown <tjc@ecs.soton.ac.uk> writes:
> I have an older Mac and a newer Thinkpad.  The Thinkpad supports a/b/g,
> and while the interface for media selection is rather clunky, it does
> work very well.    
>
> Is there any feeling for what IETF events will support in the future?
> I hope the 11a/b/g support continues, and you don't listen to Jobs :)

I'm hoping the 11a goes away, if it leads to more b/g coverage (unlikely,
considering they're probably provided by the same access points, but I live
in hope).

Why is that? I have a Japanese 11a/b/g both in my Thinkpad and Panasonic
laptops. Unfortunately, it seems that some moron's been in charge when the
frequency sets for 11a were chosen (or I'm a moron), as I can't see the 11a
networks in IETFs at all. I _suspect_ it is our good friend region-coding
that is acting up - apparently both of my laptops subscribe to the ZZJ
(Japan) frequency set according to the Intel driver in Linux, and
unfortunately I can't change that while travelling.

Wireless hardware for fixed operations? sigh..

And as a side note.. 67th IETF was the first one where I maintained network
connectivity throughout the plenaries, good job!

Cheers,

-Markus

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