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Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi

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  • The cell carriers don't need more bandwith. 5G is already quite fast with the existing allocations. The only times I've used 5G and thought it's too slow has been in rural areas where the issue is a lack of nearby cell towers, not a lack of bandwidth. The cell carriers already have loads of millimeter wave bandwidth available for use in densely packed, urban areas where the lower frequency bands are insufficient.

    It's WiFi that should be getting more bandwidth. Home internet connections keep getting faster. Multi gigabit speeds are now common in areas with fiber.

    This exactly. Wifi is damn near unusable in dense residential settings. It'll cut it for streaming and web browsing, but much more than that and you'll feel the pain of interference from all the other wifi APs in the area.

    Especially with most of them defaulting to 80MHz on 5GHz and many of those defaulting away from UNII-2. which leaves 4 non-overlapping channels (with one of them giving trouble with a lot of devices). We're right back to where we were in 2.4. Even worse, I think, since wifi is more ubiquitous.

  • Sometimes re-wiring a house or building isn't as practical as setting up a mesh network that's good-enough.

    Mesh should be an option of last resort. It reduces the speed and increases the latency quite a bit. The only thing worse is power line networking, which has the side effect of turning your whole house into an RF jammer.

  • Rat Bastard Rafael Cruz

  • Next they are gonna take away amateur radio frequencies so it would be illegal to communicate outside of the internet.

    Then its very easy to do censorship, just turn off power to ISPs and its information blackout.

    I mean, does anyone actually communicate on the ham bands? HF is for contesting and contesting only, 2 meters is for "checking in and out" on ragchew nets, 70cm is 2m again except half the range, 220 is hipster 2 meter, and I've never been given a reason to even think about 33cm and above. You're more likely to find discussion about Icom vs Yaesu's incompatible 2 meter digital things than high UHF.

    Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another so...I haven't renewed my license.

  • 6GHz compatible devices are already being sold. If your phone is new-ish it likely supports it, and many routers already have it.

    This isn’t a “next gen” problem, it’s a “current gen bleeding edge” problem.

    I have been using 6ghz for about a year or so now and I found it to be quite fast. MLO can be super weird sometimes and seems to get confused, but it works. (It's probably just a driver I haven't updated.)

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    Yep, just set your Wi-Fi routers to use 6GHD and trample all over the other people in the band until they figure out that they can't control it.

  • I thought wifi was on 2.4ghz, and the new ones were on 5ghz?

    Nah wifi was actually originally on 5GHz spectrum, with 802.11a. It came out shortly before 802.11b, which used 2.4GHz, and was objectively better...but component shortages for 802.11a devices made the inferior 802.11b more successful on the market.

    Then in 2009, after 802.11b and 802.11g came 802.11n, which used the 5GHz spectrum, and introduced dual-band routers to consumers.

    Most recently, 6GHz got allocated with the advent of Wifi 6E and Wifi 7.

  • I mean, does anyone actually communicate on the ham bands? HF is for contesting and contesting only, 2 meters is for "checking in and out" on ragchew nets, 70cm is 2m again except half the range, 220 is hipster 2 meter, and I've never been given a reason to even think about 33cm and above. You're more likely to find discussion about Icom vs Yaesu's incompatible 2 meter digital things than high UHF.

    Most actual communication is illegal on the ham bands one way or another so...I haven't renewed my license.

    I thought about getting a ham license so are you telling me there is really no need?

  • I thought about getting a ham license so are you telling me there is really no need?

    This guy's full of shit. You can talk all you want on the HF bands, they're certainly not exclusively for contesting. You can do Morse code or digital modes too. The "most actual communication is illegal on ham bands" thing is wrong too, you can talk about pretty much anything you want as long as it's not "obscene or profane," according to the FCC.

  • Current generation wifi 6E and 7 add 6Ghz which offers substantially more bandwidth / speed.

    Wifi 7 also allows devices to use 2.4/5/6Ghz at the same time instead of just hard switching between them.

    Would be a major setback since 6Ghz allows devices to easily hit Gigabit speeds wirelessly.

    Yeah, I've got Wifi 7 set up and it's awesome. I've got a single access point, and I get full gigabit in my office with line of sight, and it auto switches to 5GHz or 2.4GHz when I move too far away. It's also great for apartments since it's more easily blocked by walls, there's way less interference from neighbors.

  • Yeah IoT devices don't need bandwith, they need range (at low powers) and those lower frequencies get them that. 6ghz wifi has pretty small range and is awful for IoT stuff.

    Right, I figured they meant in order to make room. There’s too much cluttering 2.4 — zigbee, zwave, bluetooth, IO peripherals, microwave ovens, cordless handsets, walkies, and more. WRT general WiFi traffic, in dense residential settings 2.4 is often only used for initial client device handshake.

  • This guy's full of shit. You can talk all you want on the HF bands, they're certainly not exclusively for contesting. You can do Morse code or digital modes too. The "most actual communication is illegal on ham bands" thing is wrong too, you can talk about pretty much anything you want as long as it's not "obscene or profane," according to the FCC.

    It's illegal to transmit music, it's illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you're controlling a satellite, it's illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes, and it's actually illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

  • I thought about getting a ham license so are you telling me there is really no need?

    A HAM license realistically is for two things:

    1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works
    2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else

    For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you're not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn't really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of "only enough power to complete the transmission". Functionally it's so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.

    The group AFRL ARRL has a pretty restrictive "band plan" that I think is where the above comment's salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.

    I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I'm out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier

    Edit: formatting, typoing ARRL

  • I thought about getting a ham license so are you telling me there is really no need?

    Get into ham radio if you like radios, that's pretty much the only topic you'll find on the air.

  • A HAM license realistically is for two things:

    1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works
    2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else

    For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you're not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn't really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of "only enough power to complete the transmission". Functionally it's so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.

    The group AFRL ARRL has a pretty restrictive "band plan" that I think is where the above comment's salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.

    I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I'm out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier

    Edit: formatting, typoing ARRL

    So am I able to goof around on the radio till I get my license or do I really need to have my license first?

  • It's illegal to transmit music, it's illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you're controlling a satellite, it's illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes, and it's actually illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

    It's illegal to transmit music

    True, for obvious reasons

    it's illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you're controlling a satellite

    True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It's a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.

    it's illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes.

    True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That's what "amateur" means.

    illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

    False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.

  • So am I able to goof around on the radio till I get my license or do I really need to have my license first?

    It's illegal to push that button until you're licensed.

    (No one will search you out if you're not being annoying)

  • A HAM license realistically is for two things:

    1 the test teaches you major items you should know about how radio works
    2 how to not fuck shit up for everyone else

    For the bands allocated to HAM radio in the US, as long as you're not fucking shit up for everyone else the FCC doesn't really care. A good example of that and my personal favorite rule is the power transmission rule of "only enough power to complete the transmission". Functionally it's so vague that I doubt anyone would ever actually get their license suspended over it.

    The group AFRL ARRL has a pretty restrictive "band plan" that I think is where the above comment's salt is coming from. A perception I have and have heard others talk about is the HAM community has a tendency to be borderline hostile to newcomers and are very gate-keepy, which ARRL in my experience embodies.

    I have a license purely to play by the rules from a legal standpoint when I'm out in the rocky mountains hiking and camping with friends, makes communicating with different groups way easier

    Edit: formatting, typoing ARRL

    Do you mean ARRL?

    I agree their bandplan is pretty restricty, but it's also not law. It's more for playing nice with each other. Keep high power up here so it doesn't wipe out the people playing with low power, digital here so they don't get overrun by voice, etc. You wouldn't have any idea you're stepping on someone sending Morse if you're on FM. So there's reason for it.

    And yeah, with line of sight radios, nobody gives two shits 20 miles from civilization in the woods.

  • So am I able to goof around on the radio till I get my license or do I really need to have my license first?

    Nothing legally stops you from listening. To transmit, you are legally required to have a callsign (which you must broadcast during transmit) and your callsign must be licensed for that frequency.

    If you break the law, it's highly unlikely that the FCC themselves will hunt you down and fine you. If you're using it to talk to others on the HAM bands, they'll likely get pissed at you for not being licensed but actually tracking you down is difficult. Using it for your own personal projects, friend groups, etc, it's unlikely anyone would notice you at all.

    A license is like $15 for life (just need to occasionally tell the FCC you're still alive), the test will teach you some stuff, I don't see it as that onerous to play by the rules so I'd recommend following them.

  • It's illegal to transmit music

    True, for obvious reasons

    it's illegal to transmit anything encrypted unless you're controlling a satellite

    True, it helps to ensure nothing illegal is going on and enforce keeping commercial interests out. It's a self regulating space, one of the only cases I know of that tends to work due to there being no monetary interests allowed. The point is to communicate information, not hide it.

    it's illegal to transmit anything for commercial purposes.

    True, the whole point is to keep commercial interests out. That's what "amateur" means.

    illegal to transmit anything on a regular basis that could reasonably be communicated some other way.

    False. This is for something like a non-profit wanting to use radios for their operations, they should be steered toward another service like gmrs, FRS, murs, etc. instead of amateur radio.

    I call bs on the encryption part too. You just need to publicly post the key for your encryption and say you're not trying to hide what you're saying.

    I haven't seen any regulations saying where you need to publicly post the key.

    I say license up now and learn it how the shit works. Never know when some "pirate" stations may be needed.

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    Forgive me for not explaining better. Here are the terms potentially needing explanation. Provisioning in this case is initial system setup, the kind of stuff you would do manually after a fresh install, but usually implies a regimented and repeatable process. Virtual Machine (VM) snapshots are like a save state in a game, and are often used to reset a virtual machine to a particular known-working condition. Preboot Execution Environment (PXE, aka ‘network boot’) is a network adapter feature that lets you boot a physical machine from a hosted network image rather than the usual installation on locally attached storage. It’s probably tucked away in your BIOS settings, but many computers have the feature since it’s a common requirement in commercial deployments. As with the VM snapshot described above, a PXE image is typically a known-working state that resets on each boot. Non-virtualized means not using hardware virtualization, and I meant specifically not running inside a virtual machine. Local-only means without a network or just not booting from a network-hosted image. Telemetry refers to data collecting functionality. Most software has it. Windows has a lot. Telemetry isn’t necessarily bad since it can, for example, help reveal and resolve bugs and usability problems, but it is easily (and has often been) abused by data-hungry corporations like MS, so disabling it is an advisable precaution. MS = Microsoft OSS = Open Source Software Group policies are administrative settings in Windows that control standards (for stuff like security, power management, licensing, file system and settings access, etc.) for user groups on a machine or network. Most users stick with the defaults but you can edit these yourself for a greater degree of control. Docker lets you run software inside “containers” to isolate them from the rest of the environment, exposing and/or virtualizing just the resources they need to run, and Compose is a related tool for defining one or more of these containers, how they interact, etc. To my knowledge there is no one-to-one equivalent for Windows. Obviously, many of these concepts relate to IT work, as are the use-cases I had in mind, but the software is simple enough for the average user if you just pick one of the premade playbooks. (The Atlas playbook is popular among gamers, for example.) Edit: added explanations for docker and telemetry