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While in Washington, I met a nice lady from the Texas Association of Broadcasters who was there to meet with the FCC to discuss the idea of requiring Wi-Fi to carry public service messages.

I have my own ideas, but before I shared them, I wanted to get everyone's feedback. I will be forwarding your thoughts to her, so give it some thought!

ccollins : SWEET POST :)

Bottom line --the FCC owns the airwaves. ->

If they believe that we are under a known or perceived threats (say weather warnings, terrorist activities, traffic updates). (!)

I would like to know. Will our current spectrum handle the load and the broadcast traffic ? :?

Or will we use multicasting?

A lot would say Big Brother has too much power and the little spectrum we have is our and ours alone. }:-)

Besides, the 4.9 GHz spectrum has been reserved for the wireless public safety net already, and we (common folk) are limited on accessing that frequency. Is it encrypted data? Will they give us the key :-?


If there is a way to down-convert or up-convert that spectrum to broadcast messages to the 2.4GHz band on a new channel in the US say... adding a channel 16 or 17; instead of channel 1,6,11....

If we are looking at the 5 GHz range, we could run into radar and then the TPC issues where the requirement to power regulate the devices are not possible 8-O and the frequency in use is constantly interfering with the radars.

I really need to understand the what, where, when and WI-FI reasons she made this recommendation.

She isn't necessarily making a recommendation for it, but wanted to know my opinion as it is "on the table" for a possible recommendation.

Given the various security settings on 802.11 networks as they are today, I do not see how this could be done. Also, the transmitters would need too much power to reach everyone. Also, not all roads lead to Rome in wireless (everyone is not on the internet) so how could we all be reached.

A massive blast to all ISP's and browsers on the web would be easier.

COOl Idea though, especially for Amber Alerts etc.

I will give up my wireless access to the government when they pry my APs from my cold dead hands. }:-)

Joel

Tell that lady that we all agree to further government regulation if she will agree to have government RFID chips installed in all Texas cattle, sheep and teenagers.

This thread is going south in a hurry. :)

I'm with Joelb on this one. Asking me to give up Wi-Fi to the government would result in another Waco fiasco. ;-) David Koresh was a punk. The Devinator would use high-powered RF amps and 50 dBi antennas to fry the Texas national guard as they attacked the Wi-Fi compound. :-D

So much for copying and pasting this thread directly to her... :-//

I'll just turn on WEP.....That will keep them out.