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Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

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Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#51
post #13

For the context - what do US, UK and China do?

In the US, it's open for unlicensed use for very low power devices. That is, it's open for WiFi. It's used by WiFi 6E, 7, and 8. https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-opens-entire-6-ghz-band-ver...

Perhaps not for much longer:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45785987

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#52
post #49
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why it should be used for wifi! 2.4GHz is completely unusable in urban environments, because you're getting interference from two dozen neighbours. And everyone has a poor connection, so their "handy" nephew will turn up the transmission power to the maximum - which of course makes it even worse. 6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole b…

> 6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole bandwith mostly to yourself. I'm no expert and only speak from personal experience. When the signal is weak, you don't have the whole bandwith, you only get low throughput. Ideally you would want a strong, high penetration signal (low frequency) and all users on separate channels. It's of course impossible in d…

That’s not how RF works (generally). It’s about signal/noise ratio.

It gets really bad when signal is difficult to distinguish from noise because (for example!) everyone is talking at roughly the same power level. Think crowded bar with everyone yelling at each other.

When one is significantly louder than others, even if the others are not that quiet, it’s not a big deal unless at your ear/antenna they have the same loudness. Think concert with big speakers for the main act.

6ghz is better for many isolated networks right next to each other precisely because the others ‘voices’ lose power so quickly. You don’t have the competition for attention. Think ‘every couple in the bar gets their own booth’.

Wired connections are even better, because the amount of noise required to be unable to tell apart signal from noise is orders of magnitude higher - like ‘noisy welder right on top/EMP’ levels. Because the wires can actually be shielded. It’s like having your own hotel room.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#53
post #45

Tbh it's probably much more useful for mobile operators than wifi. 6GHz does not propagate well at all at wifi power limits and as such one 320MHz band probably won't overlap much with neighbours, even in apartment buildings. This does preclude having 640MHz bands though in future wifi standards, but I'm not sure how important that is - Wifi7 on MLO could theoretically deliver 7.2gbit/sec in 2x2 config and double tha…

That's exactly why it should be used for wifi! 2.4GHz is completely unusable in urban environments, because you're getting interference from two dozen neighbours. And everyone has a poor connection, so their "handy" nephew will turn up the transmission power to the maximum - which of course makes it even worse. 6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole b…

The question then is: do we really need the whole 1Ghz of spectrum for wifi, if it doesn't really propagate to your neighbour? It should be much easier to avoid interference than on 2.4Ghz, so you need less channels.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#55

Tbh it's probably much more useful for mobile operators than wifi. 6GHz does not propagate well at all at wifi power limits and as such one 320MHz band probably won't overlap much with neighbours, even in apartment buildings. This does preclude having 640MHz bands though in future wifi standards, but I'm not sure how important that is - Wifi7 on MLO could theoretically deliver 7.2gbit/sec in 2x2 config and double tha…

And why does it need to be reserved exclusively for them? Can’t they be just another user of a well established standard or do they want to abuse the crap out of it?

They are trying to improve service by avoiding noise. Something few realize is that all wireless technologies are, in effect, time-share: Every device on the channel, router/tower included, take turn to talk while everyone else shuts up and listens.

If other types of devices also use your channel, you'll have to shut up and wait for airtime even longer. Having WiFi and cellular co-exist mean that they are both fighting eachother over airtime, and both spending a lot of time silent.

It's preferable to avoid channel overlap when the services need to co-exist.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#56
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s even more amusing in some ways. A common way to refer to those from the USA in Brazil, for instance (even an official one!) is ‘Norte Americano’. Which is all kinds of weird because - what about Mexico and Canada? And what about the ‘United states’ part? It’s just to disambiguate from ‘Americano’ as in what others in South America sometimes use to refer to latin Americans and as a little bit of a FU to the USA,…

Ahh, I forgot about that...and to be transparent, I actually have no idea what French Guyana, Haiti, or Belize typically do to differentiate between people of the American continent(s) and US persons. I should have said Hispanoamerica, but oh well.

If I’ve learned anything in Brazil, it’s that it’s all good bro - as long as you aren’t Argentinian. Then we need to fight, or something hah.

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#57
post #48
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly why it should be used for wifi! 2.4GHz is completely unusable in urban environments, because you're getting interference from two dozen neighbours. And everyone has a poor connection, so their "handy" nephew will turn up the transmission power to the maximum - which of course makes it even worse. 6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole b…

> 6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole bandwith mostly to yourself. I agree with this and the fact that 6GHz should still be available for wifi, but this whole bandwidth frenzy over wifi has always seemed like a meme for anyone except power users. A 4K netflix stream caps out around 15mbps, so >95% of typical home users will be just fine using 2.4/5…

You've got to take into account that those bandwidth figures exist on paper only - nobody is getting 5Gbps out of their wifi.

In practice it is all about degraded performance. If you're sitting in another room than the AP, close to your neighbour, do you want to be left with 50Mbps remaining out of the original 5000Mbps, or 2Mbps remaining out of the original 200Mpbs?

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To be really pedantic we should acknowledge there's no good reason to separate Europe from Asia, it's all one geographical continent. To be even more pedantic you have to throw in Africa as well, as that is connected by land to Asia just like Europe is! Now we have the supercontinent Afroeurasia which contains like 85% of the worlds population.

Suez Canal exists and cuts off Africa from Eurasia

Obviously, but in case the sarcasm of my comment didn't come through: I was trying to make the point that you can't draw lines between continents just because of geography (or tectonic plates for that matter). It's arbitrary - after all we can't even agree which continents do exist.

Relevant watching: Map Men: How many continents are there? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrsxRJdwfM0)

Re: Europe to decide if 6 GHz is shared between Wi-Fi and cellular networks

#60
This is just corporate greed!

I live in a EU country in an apartment and 5GHz is completely crowded and pretty much unusable because of DFS (making your WiFi AP unexpectedly stop to do a complete scan and choose a new channel), so 6GHz is the only stable, high bandwidth option here, and we need more channels so that most peopole chan switch to it.

The cellular networks operators can have that shitty 5GHz part of the spectrum if they want it!

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