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How would that work for the people already using 6 GHz routers?
this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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Presumably given they’ve all been released in the past few years and are still getting updates the manufacturers would release an update disabling the functionality to comply with law. Same with end user devices removing the functionality via software update.
You’d have a small percentage of holdouts who have auto updates off and also refuse to apply it manually and who also have non-updated computers or smartphone. They’d leave it up to whoever buys the spectrum to locate illegal use like this based on detected interference in their usage, report it to the FCC and they send you a nasty letter followed by debilitating fines and a legal order to seize your equipment if that fails.
In practice people who go out of their way to avoid the updates that disable it will probably see no consequences but decreasing benefits as well and will eventually update or replace devices.
I’m just glad we live in a country where politicians can also be experts in RF design/engineering and make policies based on their expertise.
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.
This would need like a Canadian or Mexican to help provide the internet from across the border, because if they pull the Iran style blackout there will be zero internet for the entire country.
Meshenger app and mesh networks would still work, back to the BBS times we go
Who'd have thought WWIV was so prescient as to when it would become re-relevant.
Time to dust off my SysOp skillset lol
For what it's worth, I think Cruz's proposal (all of it) was defeated 99-1.
Yes, Rafael suffered a 99-1 loss. Guessing he's the 1, so a total loss.
What a way to advertise your impotence.
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Its always Cruz.
Rat Bastard Rafael Cruz
Well whoever ends up buying that band is in for a load of shit because I and a lot of other people are NOT going to stop using 6GHz WiFi
Same thing with Meshtastic. Go ahead and see just how much you'll waste your money.
Yup, the band is already littered with 6g devices. It'd be a stupid purchase.
But also, 6GHz is somewhat of a useless band for carriers. It's high enough frequency that it'll get absorbed by most things yet low enough frequency that it'll struggle to really carry a whole lot of data.
What do you mean by same thing with Meshtastic, are they trying to sell spectrum around 900mHz too?
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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.
It's a bad band for cellular. It's short-range and shit at penetration.
It's really not even that good for wifi unless you're close or have a mesh network with APs all over the building.
Because of its shortcomings as a communication bandwidth, it's really, really good at cell-based positioning.
mesh network
Or traditional network with Ethernet backhaul and lots of access points. I really wish mesh networks would die off honestly.
Like anything else, they have their place. But they've been shoved into use cases they dont fit as well.
Sometimes re-wiring a house or building isn't as practical as setting up a mesh network that's good-enough.
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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.
and on top of that, 5G afaik is specifically made so that if you need more density, you can turn down the cell power and install more cell sites rather than take more spectrum
it was designed for venues like sports stadiums so you could keep installing more and more cell towers inside stadiums etc to accommodate huge crowds
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.
So if I'm reading this right... wired Internet providers are against this due to home Wi-Fi Internet speeds and phone providers are for this for mobile speeds/bandwidth?
I don't know how I feel about this as I currently have T-Mobile home Internet and it's not the best experience... but it mostly works and it's cheaper than my previous cable provider. However, home Wi-Fi really needs 6 GHz for future IoT devices.
But I am definitely against it because Ted Cruz is for it. He obviously is getting paid/bribed by the telecoms... and he sucks.
Eh, IoT devices typically use 2.4ghz, or even 933mhz...
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.
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