On Thursday (05/09/2002 at 11:09AM -0500), Nate Carlson wrote: > On Thu, 9 May 2002, Brent J. Nordquist wrote: > > /. had a pointer yesterday to an interesting article about potential > > interference with the 2.4GHz part of the spectrum from a new lighting > > product. What I found interesting was the description of FCC Part 15, > > which makes an interesting bargain: users don't have to be licensed > > if they "adhere to certain technical limitations with no expectation > > of protection". This bargain is one of the things that's driving the > > rapid adoption of 802.11b but I had never thought of the potential > > downside. > > If you read the notes, it sounds like this article is actually a year old, > and Fusion is now out of business. At least, so the Slashdot'ers say in > the comments.. I think that you would see SIGNIFICANT industry lobbying from the likes of anyone building WLAN equipment-- such as Cisco, Intersil, many others.. that would just make this problem go away... should these ever become closer to reality. The FCC (w.r.t. part 15 at least) is all about facilitating product growth and revenue. They are interested in making it easy for ALOT of companies to do well on a particular piece of spectrum... not in taking a risk that ONE might do well with some untested (in the field) product idea that potentially conflicts with all the others. If the bulbs came to market but wiped out 802.11b LANs everywhere they were used, the bulbs would likely disappear from the market for lack of type-acceptance (ie, FCC approval). cje -- Chris Elmquist mailto:chrise at pobox.com http://www.pobox.com/~chrise