FCC Widens Wi-Fi Airwaves Access in Win for Facebook, Google

Regulators voted to let fast Wi-Fi devices use a broad swath of airwaves, delivering a win for tech companies such as Google and Facebook and a setback to utilities that use the frequencies to control pipelines and electric grids. From a report: The U.S. Federal Communications Commission decided to let the airwaves band known as 6 gigahertz be used by phones, tablets, wearables and other consumer electronics as well as industrial sensors for manufacturing. The agency said it anticipates new, high-speed uses will emerge that will help secure U.S. leadership in advanced 5G services. The agency approved the change in a 5-0 vote during its monthly meeting, which was held online. "This will be a huge benefit to consumers and innovators," said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. The agency under his leadership has pushed to rearrange airwaves uses, finding places on the spectrum where assignments made years ago can be modified to accommodate the booming demand for mobile signals. Wi-Fi, which routes signals to wired networks, already carries the bulk of mobile-phone traffic. The newly available airwaves will expand frequencies available to Wi-Fi six-fold, and uses will expand substantially, said Edgar Figueroa, president of the Wi-Fi Alliance, with members including chipmakers Intel Corp. and Qualcomm.

Will this enable a roof top grid ...

[bobs666]

... that will replace most of the mobile network tax we are now paying?

pass the cost along

[hdyoung]

Seems reasonable to me. Consumer electronics is something we all benefit greatly from. Allocating more bandwidth seems reasonable.

It's going to be a hassle for industry to replace a bunch of sensors and control boxes, but ultimately they have the capacity to do this. Nearly all industrial monitoring and control kit is designed to be accessible and upgradable anyway. They're just going to have to move their upgrade cycles up by 5,10 or 15 years. Annoying, to be sure.

On the other hand, nobody gets to gripe when they pass the cost along to consumers. Enjoy your slightly-faster video streaming. You paid for it.

Re:

[Randj Herdle]

Of course. Who needs utility grids?

Re: pass the cost along

[hdyoung]

The companies will know its coming way in advance. They will have time to install new kit. And charge customers for it.

Concerning item in article

[SuperKendall]

âoeThere are so many devices,âsaid Brett Kilbourne, general counsel of the Utilities Technology Council that advocates for the communications needs of utilities. âoeIf we have to fix interference after it occurs, you can have all sorts of problemsâ including power blackouts.

So doesn't that also mean that some nefarious entity could create power blackouts by flooding the 6GHz band around power infrastructure?

Rather than being worried growing use of WiFi might affect things, that seems like a problem you should be grateful that random devices may illuminate slowly so you can fix that weakness of your system.

Cell Phones On Airplanes

[SlashbotAgent]

It's rather like the supposed danger of cell phones on airplanes.

'They'll interfere with flight systems.' or 'They interfere with the navigation systems. So, everyone make sure that you set them in Airplane mode!'

So, if there is any threat at all, why would you allow ~200 of them in the cabin in the hands of ~200 morons/terrorists?

It's called BULLSHIT!

Re:

[alvinrod]

I'd heard that the real reason for disallowing phones, etc. was that in the event of a crash you don't want hundreds of small blunt objects being propelled through the cabin at upwards of several hundred miles per hour. I would imagine that those blunt objects containing batteries that could rupture in those circumstances doesn't make matters better.

Re:

[SlashbotAgent]

Have you been on a plane?

Cellphones are permitted. They are not disallowed. There are ~200 cellphones on every full flight.

Re:

[jcochran]

There's quite a difference between a cell phone in your hand, and a cell phone in your pocket during the moment of a crash.

Re:

[kqs]

I believe there are two reasons. One: cell towers don't like a single phone being able talk to 6+ towers at once, and switching between towers at 500+mph. That's less of an issue now than it once was.

Two: nobody wants people on planes talking on their phones. That includes airlines, airplane crew, and fellow passengers. People on phones talk loudly and are very very annoying to everyone but themselves. This is the main reason that you cannot have your cell connection on during a flight.

Re:

[paulhar]

> nobody wants people on planes talking on their phones. That includes airlines, airplane crew, and fellow passengers.

And yet... having flown on lots of planes to/from places like London & the US, I notice some planes have in-seat phones...

Keep re-allocating everything for 'smart' phones.

[Fly Swatter]

In recent news, the sun will no longer rise because we have reallocated the visible spectrum previously allocated to sunlight for use in WiFi-69F-LTE8, trust us because your VR POV cat videos will no longer need to buffer.

"Win for Google and Facebook"?

[Nabeel_co]

This is super misleading journalism. For one, neither Facebook nor Google are on the Wi-Fi alliance. What would they care?

Re:

[paulhar]

There was an entire paragraph.

'WifiForward, an advocacy group, said in an emailed statement the FCC decision “will make it easier for people to stay productive and informed.” The group represents companies including Alphabet Inc.’s Google, Microsoft Corp. and cable operators Comcast Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. It said the move will make connections faster and “supercharge” innovation.'