With the proliferation of home networks, and cheap hubs - at least
those with small port counts -2 and 4 etc, it would seem that most hubs
would be class B by default unless they had some huge port count. One can't
just claim it to be class A because they want it to be class A. There is, or
used to be, a test or sorts before you can claim either class status, and in
areas of ambiguity the default was class B.
Back in the good old days - circa 1982. The test for class A or B
was basically three items that were somewhat benchmarks for whether or not
the device would end up in a residential area 1) price, 2) marketing
strategies, and 3) "user friendliness"
Back then even a computer could have meet either class A or B if 1)
the price was so high that it likely would not appeal to the average home
user. A $8,000 computer for example, 2) the computer was marketed in trade
magazines but not hobbyists journals etc, and 3) There wasn't software that
made it readily useable to and end user - (other than the O/S and remember
there wasn't such a thing as open architecture so software was written
pretty much for the machine on which it ran).
A $100.00 or $200.00 hub doesn't meet any of the requirement - its
cheap, likely to be used in residential areas on home networks, and will
work with any standard Ethernet port.
Still given they exist, the suggestions you have received are
appropriate, but not much you can do about it if the customer buys a class A
device. I suppose your only real defense is to have several Class B hubs
that can be inserted into any system being sent to the authorities for
audit, or during a field problem. If it fails with the A hub, but passes
with only the swap of an appropriate class B hub, the onus (should) shift to
either the customer for improperly using a Class A device, or the Hub
manufacturer for Claiming class A compliance for a device which is required
to have Class B status.
Gary
From: Kevin Newland [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Friday, August 27, 2004 4:13 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: FCC class A and B
Hello All,
We have a product that gets its power from a USB hub.
In all cases the end user buys a USB hub from anyone
he likes and uses it to power our product. I.e. we
have no control over as to whose USB hub is used with
our product. We know that our product on its own
passes FCC class B emissions, but there are USB hub on
the market that are only rated as class A and when
these are used with our product we only pass class A.
This will give us a marketing disadvantage. I suppose
my question is that what is the most efficient and
legal way to be able to market our product as a class
B? Can we add a statement of some kind in our user
manual to say that the product on its own satisfies
class B? Is that acceptable by FCC?
thanks
Kevin
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