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Finally, will France be forced to allow outdoor use of 802.11a WiFi at 5 GHz?

Nobody has paid much notice to the fact that WiFi in Europe, officially, didn't include the 5GHz version, 802.11a - devices that use it are now commonplace. So nobody is going to pay much attention to the fact that, officially, you can, now.

The decision by the EC to authorise 5GHz for public use is one thing. What we'll have to wait for, is for France to go along with it.

Again, it's hardly an issue. Authorities can insist that transmit power control (TPC) and dynamic frequency selection (DFS) have to be part of the 5GHz spec if they like... nobody paid any attention when it was officially banned, and the Authorities could do exactly nothing about it.

In five years' time, there will probably be new laws covering anti-social use of WLAN in domestic suburbs, and ways of detecting transgressors.

Today, you can set up a WiFi transmitter with totally illegal power levels and gain levels, and probably, the only result will be that your neighbours will take their Netgear and Linksys boxes back to PC World and say: "I want my money back! - it doesn't work."

And if you think the regulator, Ofcom, will even answer a phone call complaining about an out-of-spec Access Point, you are living in dreamland..