Forum

http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/hw/wireless/ps4555/products_white_paper0900aecd801c4a88.shtml

Thoughts?

Gotta love that last section:

... local municipalities, cities, or neighborhood groups cannot impose restrictions on installations of 802.11 WLAN products on property controlled by a user, except where public safety is a concern.

Joel

This is a really cool thing in making sure that building owners can't control Wi-Fi use of its tenants, but even with this regulation in place, neighborhoods could still restrict the use of towers in someone's yard due to appearance. They'd be using one "regulation" to circumvent another. My home town has ordinances against signs, towers, and all kinds of things like that, but even worse are subdivisions. They have VERY restrictive rules around here. Can you BELIEVE that they won't let you have more than 2 cars up on blocks in your yard at any given time! What kind of @!#$@! is that!

Devinator

Consider this new rule going into effect on July 20, 2007:

FCC Rule # 15.407(h)(2) requires that products operating in the UNII-2 and UNII-2 extended bands (5.25-5.35 GHz and 5.47-5.725 GHz) must support Dynamic Frequency Selection (DFS), to detect and automatically adjusts channels to protect WLAN communications from interfering with military or weather radar systems. All WLAN products that ship in Canada and the US on or after July 20, 2007 must meet the DFS for FCC requirements.

How does this impact you? Well, if you have "old" APs only (i.e., ones that don't support the July 20, 2007 DFS Rule), no impact, as long as you don't intend on using the UNII-2 and UNII-2 Extended bands. If you only have "new" APs (i.e., ones that already support the new DFS requirements), also no impact. However, if you want to mix the two, you'll need to figure out whether you want to use new firmware on the "old" APs (if their radios can support those channels) or if you want to go against strong FCC recommendations to not downgrade your firmware (not recommended) to match what you've got deployed.

Note: This isn't a Cisco issue, this is an industry issue. All vendors will have to comply with this.

Joel

Towers restrictions have been circumvented for years by amateur radio operators (hams). Do a search on "stealth antenna" and you'll find tons of ideas on how to "hide" antennas -- certainly that could be used for Wi-Fi as well. One guy put up an antenna that looked exactly like all the other vents seen on the top of houses today. Other people use flagpoles... now who's going to tell you that a flagpole is an eyesore when there's a proud American flag waving from it?

Where there's a will there's a way. }:-)

Joel

SWEET. Thanks JB.

Devinator

Sorry Joel I had to...

Other people use flagpoles... now who's going to tell you that a flagpole is an eyesore when there's a proud American flag waving from it?

http://www.accesshollywood.com/news/ah2387.shtml


8-O

Stealth antenna's...nice and tricky, I like it!

Ok, so a 42 foot flagpole is a little over the top. Even so, you know what we'd call someone who wanted to take one down (even one that big) in Georgia?



A target.


}:-)

Joel

Here is a link to some photos

http://www.tss-wireless.com/15.html

there is a podcast on stealth towers on itunes. search "tss-wireless" on itunes store and look for the stealth antenna episode.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=207485873

enjoy

Needle