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Is America about to destroy WiFi?

With Internet radio available, you can listen to any radio station in the world on your computer if it's in wireless range of a LAN. So why would America seriously consider sacrificing wireless LAN technology just to please a few satellite radio stations?

There's quite a battle looming, between unlicensed WiFi and two American-focused satellite radios - Sirius Satellite Radio, and XM Satellite Radio.

The dispute may not greatly affect WiFi, but it could utterly wipe out Bluetooth.

Essentially, despite the fact that nobody has yet experienced any problems with their satellite radio receivers even when right next to WiFi networks, these two satellite operators have decided that one day, there might be some degradation of performance - and so they've asked America's regulatory authority, the FCC, to force WiFi makers to change the spec.

The two systems are very close, with satellite wireless at 2,345MHz, while the 802.11b Wi-Fi standard operates at around 2,400MHz.

In an excellent summary of the politics of the current dispute, reporter Ben Charny of CNET warns that the danger is not imaginary. "There is a chance the FCC may choose to act even if it doesn't have to," writes Charny. "The commission has a history of treating the satellite radio companies kindly" he quotes Robert A. Saunders, an analyst with consulting firm Eastern Management Group. "The FCC has taken a very protective approach--make sure they have enough room to breathe. It treats XM and Sirius like babies, hatched this industry, carved out spectrum, made sure there were two companies so there was competition. They will act to make sure their spectrum remains pretty clean."

Charny quotes public WiFi pioneers at Sputnik and others as saying the danger is purely imaginary.

"It's just absurd," said David Sifry, chief technology officer for Sputnik, a Wi-Fi network now in the building stages. He says the request is equivalent to asking them to "break the laws of physics" since it would require them to keep the stray emissions at a level equal to the amount of radiation emitted when water evaporates in sunlight. "It's that level of insanity you can't legislate."

The "fix" would make current hardware illegal, and force designers to produce a more costly new set of designs.

This isn't a crippling problem for WiFi; it's a relatively high-priced technology, and an extra dollar or so on the build cost won't prevent people from buying it. Charny doesn't mention it, but the same increase could utterly ruin many Bluetooth projects; the object of Bluetooth is to get the total cost of the silicon and embedded profiles down to under $5 a unit.

Bluetooth is, despite its popular perception as "very low power, very short range" available in three ratings. It has a low-power, short-range ten-metre rating, a medium-power 100 metre rating and a high-power 1,000 metre option too. If the FCC decided to move against WiFi, and Bluetooth was hoping to be exempt because of lower power output, it might be disappointed.

Full article at CNet