WiMAX uses frequencies between 2 and 11GHz but as the 2.4 and 5.2 bands are unlicensed they're likely to get used for testing. Since spectrum is now something you buy, sell and hoard just like any other commodity its likely that everyone will be squeezing into what unlicensed space there is to save having to pay toll charges to whoever's got the license this month.
I can't imagine what "national security" issues Germany has with this band. I know that the width of this band varies slightly by country which is why there's been a (relatively futile) attempt to configure the chipset drivers for use in one country or another. (Its required for stuff sold in a country but the whole thing falls flat on its face because people carry laptop computers around with them -- we have a conflict between a government desire to control stuff and what happens in real life.) There's also some conflict between the parts of 5GHz band and certain airport approach radars (a slight SNAFU by the FCC, I believe) that results in what could be called "the mother of all kludges" in the drivers for 802.11a interfaces in access points. But overall the whole reason why we're stuck in this band along with microwave ovens and industrial equipment is that it was supposed to be useless -- these frequencies are absorbed by water (which is why the signal won't go through you)(but it allows you to cook things provided they've got water in them). Google lost out on the recent spectrum auction which was a bit sad because what they were pushing for was blocks of spectrum that could be used for used for open access -- unregulated applications (like ours). They also wanted the FCC to impose a condition that the winning bidders were required to resell spectrum at wholesale prices, the intent being to prevent a handful of companies from grabbing the spectrum and sitting on it to maintain a monopoly. Unfortunately we went with the 'usual suspects' getting the spectrum so don't expect any rapid changes in spectrum use. Martin Usher PS -- It wasn't the wireless network guys. The real culprits are the mobile phone companies. Open spectrum threatens their market. Mike Lachowski wrote: > Thank the wireless network guys for pushing for a ban on 2.4 for > models. Burn your Cisco routers..... > RCSE-List facilities provided by Model Airplane News. Send "subscribe" and "unsubscribe" requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please note that subscribe and unsubscribe messages must be sent in text only format with MIME turned off. Email sent from web based email such as Hotmail and AOL are generally NOT in text format
