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The Federal Communications Commission's Enforcement Bureau has reached a $200,000 settlement with TP-Link in regards to selling in the US routers that could operate at output levels higher that allowed by FCC rules.
At the same time, TP-Link has also agreed to work with the open-source community and Wi-Fi chipset manufacturers to enable consumers to install third-party firmware on their Wi-Fi routers.
Source: Help Net Security
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FCC Orders TP-Link to Allow Third-Party Firmware on Their Routers
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belief, n:
Something you do not believe.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @09:20AM
not sure ...
i think the most important step is to educate users first.
explain, as simple but functional as possible how it works (see manual).
how electro-magnetic radiation goes everywhere.
that there are limited "slots" and we have to share the spectrum.
that the radio emits these waves as long as it is power-on and that it can give you a head-ache if sitting a few feet away from a regulation-busting radio emitter, for example.
we have to assume that people are inherently good and that if provided the correct and usable knowledge, will try to follow the rules (if they know WHY).
I have acquired a few new out-of-the-box wifi radios and non had ANY explanation on how it works .. only some networking stuff about user/pasword login, default ip and such (some FCC smal print at the end and GNU license, maybe).
maybe it should be mandatory to have to include some extra explanation in the manual?
next, we have the problem of "lenses". i suppose it's possible to build a blinding-laser with a 9 V battery.
this doesn't mean that 9 V batteries have to be banned?
similarly, the question, how does a radio know what antenna (-gain) is attached? like, the above laser,
i assume it is possible to place a "weak-ish" omni-directional travellers wifi AP with no external antenna, inside
a 2 meter satellite dish with enormous (directional gain) and violate FCC regulation?
logically, one would enforce absolute where and when it is simple to do so: if there's no external antenna connector, then there's no need to adjust the output power of the radio (because the antenna is fixed). on the other hand, devices that allow attaching a antenna (pig-tail and such) should absolutely allow the user/operator to adjust the radios output power to use the best antenna form for the job and stay inside regulatory specifications.
and as always, every car can go over the speed limit. drugs and guns can be mis/ab-used. ban it all (?)
open-source should be the triple AAA+ motto of the day, first!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 04 2016, @04:34PM
Cars, drugs, and guns are poor examples to use here. Drugs that have any psychoactive effect (beyond whatever SSRIs are supposed to do magically on the 90th day after it "accumulates" or whatever bullshit) are banned, enough people want to ban all guns, and I'm sure a GPS-enabled solution to throttle cars to the speed limit is in the works.