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Alright, after searching on this a little bit more, it seems that the FCC is not prohibiting the installation of software like OpenWRT or DD-WRT, but are instead mandating that there is software for the radios only that ensures they operate in the manner they are certified for. There is much more information in the HN comments from a previous time where this was discussed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9959088
Now it doesn't matter why is that channel blocked, it's not a licensed channel in many countries (as they are used for air traffic landing assist systems, radars, medical equipment such as panic buttons for elderly and disabled people, alarms etc...) and it seems like it is causing interference other wise the FCC would not be chasing this issue again after relaxing the regulations for restricted channels and asking the users to behave.
It's a felony to tweak your Wifi beyond specs, it causes issues and regulatory bodies react, OpenWRT and DD-WRT could've saved them selves the trouble by developing a mechanism to respect local regulation own their own.
Also as it seems people panic too quickly what will happen is the same thing with the radio's on mobile SOC's each region will have it's own channels enabled, you'll still be able to use DD-WRT or w/e you want in the end you won't be able to play with the Wifi settings out of spec which there's no reason in the world for you to be able to in the 1st place.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason they're doing this is because a lot of crimes have been committed -- resulting in interference with weather radar. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10137739
There have also been a lot of crimes committed over the internet. We'd better lock it down.
Better off just building your own router. The high brow option is an embedded motherboard and minipcie wifi card. If the hardware is powerful enough to MASQ gigabit, it won't be obsolete for a decade. And you can upgrade wireless standards with a new card. The only reason there's such an upgrade cycle for consumer routers is that they're built shoddily and with the slowest CPU possible. And as much as I appreciate sp…
> And as much as I appreciate spectrum partitioning, we really need to get the major wifi chipsets completely reverse engineered so we can blow away this ambiguous spectre of "unauthorized" modifications and turn them into something normal. Randos stomping on ch12-15 isn't an actual problem - but that widespread rulebreaking coupled with the unknown of what further mods could do is scary to regulators. Destroy that u…
Or are we talking about a widespread use of such devices?
I recently bought an ADSL modem/router TP-Link 8970 (or something). The thing is awesome, except for that fact that it doesn't support OpenVPN... Supports PPTP or IPSec. Now if only, I could install OpenWRT on it. Since OpenWRT makes ROUNDS around every custom software I've seen on low-end ADSL modem/routers makes me wonder why on earth companies don't just ship OpenWRT and get over with it?
Their firmware is the feature they're selling you. The hardware is generic and without their wonderful firmware, they'd be competing solely on price. This is what the skinjobs think, at least. BTW, openvpn performance sucks eggs on the processors used in consumer routers.
At work, we recently got a couple of wifi routers and installed DD-WRT on them to finally get a decent wireless network that spans the entire building, plus a guest network that is isolated from the company network. The freedom and flexibility DD-WRT offers made this both easy and - relatively - enjoyable.
(I do not own a Fritz!Box, and I never have. The last piece of equipment made by AVM I owned was a Fritz!Card ISDN card which sat in an ISA slot, so you can roughly figure out how long ago that must have been...)
If you're in the US please take 5 minutes and do something about this. This is a big deal. Make a phone call about this: > 1 (888) 225-5322 Send an email: > Chairman Tom Wheeler: Tom.Wheeler@fcc.gov > Commissioner Mignon Clyburn: Mignon.Clyburn@fcc.gov > Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel: Jessica.Rosenworcel@fcc.gov > Commissioner Ajit Pai: Ajit.Pai@fcc.gov > Commissioner Michael O’Rielly: Mike.O'Rielly@fcc.gov Write…
PLEASE put in comments on this proceeding, everyone! WE NEED YOUR HELP!
Asshats brought it on themselves, don't commit felonies and mess with regulatory bodies... There is no reason in the world to run Wifi on outlawed channels other than pure selfishness to have a better connection and not be on the same base band or expansion bands as your neighbors. The FCC even allowed people to run low power transmitters on the restricted channels 12/13 but stated that channel 14 is banned and asked…
The Linux kernel has such mechanisms and they're not trivial to bypass. You'd as a user have to go out of your way to do so, and the devs are not in favour of users doing this. (source: I had to do so to workaround a card that was configured for completely the wrong regulatory domain).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think parent meant competition. If all other choices are super-exploitable crapware-laden routers, then Google's and Apple's devices become that much more valuable. Not sure effects on the market would be that great, but I can see how it would benefit GOOG/AAPL to reduce choices.
Oth hand no way in hell would I consider putting a Google device in the most important spot on my network, My distrust of them grows by the day.
Better off just building your own router. The high brow option is an embedded motherboard and minipcie wifi card. If the hardware is powerful enough to MASQ gigabit, it won't be obsolete for a decade. And you can upgrade wireless standards with a new card. The only reason there's such an upgrade cycle for consumer routers is that they're built shoddily and with the slowest CPU possible. And as much as I appreciate sp…
Highly unlikely and unnecessarily expensive. It's also a hassle to make a nice enclosure for what you build. Instead, you can currently consult the OpenWRT website, pick up any of many widely available $50 routers, and be set.
I don't care if it can MASQ gigabit since I don't have a gigabit connection. Whatever slowest CPU possible they put in there is more than enough to run a couple of VLANs, VPNs, IPv6 tunnel, and Samba. Not only that but you can easily recycle older hardware (for additional APs for example) or reuse what you already have.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Are you more interested in getting a cheap flashable router than in air safety? Yes, it's more important that 299m Americans who don't live beside an airport be able to use that spectrum than some small number of passengers per year that may or may not die in a possible crash that might be caused by wifi interference. There are so many lower-hanging fruit for safety that this is a non-issue.
The 299m Americans who don't live near an airport will be able to continue using that spectrum after this goes into affect.