It's really frustrating that bills can include so many unrelated issues. It just makes it impossible for representatives to vote for or against individual provisions. It will never happen but I'd like to see a requirement that bills be limited to one or at least closely related issues. If you want to allocate some wireless spectrum for commercial use, vote on that and that alone. It won't happen because it's too easy for each representative and senator to get their pet causes buried deep in some massive omnibus bill where it won't get much notice.
bediger4000 · 11h ago
Congress could do this if they wanted to, but they don't. Petty squabbling and points scoring and personal enrichment are more important to them.
Part of the problem in the case of this bill is the Senate's filibuster. There's one bill a year, the funding bill, that requires a simple majority to pass, and can't be filibustered. In the case of nearly evenly split Senate, this might be the only controversial bill to pass.
There's also an issue of majority party unity and competence that contributes to garbage pail bills.
piperswe · 12h ago
How would they re-allocate ISM space? 6GHz Wi-Fi is widely deployed enough that it would be just about impossible to force an update to every single device to stop using part of the band.
EDIT: looks like it's not ISM, maybe they'd continue allowing Very Low Power devices on 6GHz while auctioning out higher power licenses?
gruez · 12h ago
At the risk of sounding like a mobile industry shill, what practical use case is there for 6 ghz wifi? The article mentions:
>Calabrese said he expects the biggest impact of reducing Wi-Fi's use of 6 GHz at "busy venues such as schools, airports, sporting arenas, shopping malls, all the different places where many people gather together and try to get on the same access points and unlicensed spectrum through Wi-Fi."
but I don't think I can remember the last time I connected to wifi at some sort of public venue. In most cases I'm there to do something, and don't mind burning a bit of my data allotment to avoid going through the hassle of connecting to wifi. Even at places like airports I don't think bandwidth was ever an issue. I'm typically not doing bandwidth intensive tasks like downloading Steam games.
The only other use case I can think of is wifi in apartment buildings, but most uses of home internet don't really require fast speeds. 4K streaming only takes around 25-30 Mb/s. Bandwidth heavy stuff like game updates can be done using wired, and in my experience 5 ghz's penetrating power isn't good enough that the airwaves end up getting congested.
jauntywundrkind · 12h ago
It's nice to have files transfer fast. A lot of people have gbit or faster internet, and 6e makes actually seeing those download speeds a real world possibility, which might not feel necessary but sure is nice to have when you laptop is downloading a 120GB game!!
But the real utility is that more spectrum means less congestion. At a school or stadium it's not about trying to get 4x4x2 multi-band MIMO and 1024qam pumping 2GBps to a device. It's about having sufficient spectrum so that lots and lots of devices can operate at once without frequent collisions.
For many people in cities, wifi 6E has been a godsend, has made wifi usable. It's unbelievably forsaken to imagine giving up a sizable chunk of this spectrum to a bunch of cellular carriers (or other good parts of the spectrum!). As usual, this feels like another vile act do the worst possible things to the public. The one time (!!!! Auctions are insane rent seeking!!) pocket change the FCC collects for this spectrum is irrelevant, this is another act of pure malice. Sell off the land, sell off the airwaves. Hive of villainy.
Part of the problem in the case of this bill is the Senate's filibuster. There's one bill a year, the funding bill, that requires a simple majority to pass, and can't be filibustered. In the case of nearly evenly split Senate, this might be the only controversial bill to pass.
There's also an issue of majority party unity and competence that contributes to garbage pail bills.
EDIT: looks like it's not ISM, maybe they'd continue allowing Very Low Power devices on 6GHz while auctioning out higher power licenses?
>Calabrese said he expects the biggest impact of reducing Wi-Fi's use of 6 GHz at "busy venues such as schools, airports, sporting arenas, shopping malls, all the different places where many people gather together and try to get on the same access points and unlicensed spectrum through Wi-Fi."
but I don't think I can remember the last time I connected to wifi at some sort of public venue. In most cases I'm there to do something, and don't mind burning a bit of my data allotment to avoid going through the hassle of connecting to wifi. Even at places like airports I don't think bandwidth was ever an issue. I'm typically not doing bandwidth intensive tasks like downloading Steam games.
The only other use case I can think of is wifi in apartment buildings, but most uses of home internet don't really require fast speeds. 4K streaming only takes around 25-30 Mb/s. Bandwidth heavy stuff like game updates can be done using wired, and in my experience 5 ghz's penetrating power isn't good enough that the airwaves end up getting congested.
But the real utility is that more spectrum means less congestion. At a school or stadium it's not about trying to get 4x4x2 multi-band MIMO and 1024qam pumping 2GBps to a device. It's about having sufficient spectrum so that lots and lots of devices can operate at once without frequent collisions.
For many people in cities, wifi 6E has been a godsend, has made wifi usable. It's unbelievably forsaken to imagine giving up a sizable chunk of this spectrum to a bunch of cellular carriers (or other good parts of the spectrum!). As usual, this feels like another vile act do the worst possible things to the public. The one time (!!!! Auctions are insane rent seeking!!) pocket change the FCC collects for this spectrum is irrelevant, this is another act of pure malice. Sell off the land, sell off the airwaves. Hive of villainy.