| > You'll see a huge number of them because everyone has the output power on their router set to the max value. None of these people are firmware developers. They used the setting that existed from the factory in their router or in something they downloaded from the internet, and in the vast majority of cases it wasn't even the second one. > If WifiBoost.exe could in tease that output power enough people would do it that WiFi or Bluetooth in some places would be completely unusable. Then WifiBoost.exe would be illegal and the developers would be subject to penalties. It would also be ineffective, because you can't remove interference by increasing power. The "highest allowable power" setting is often the default because it gives the best range, and the purpose of allowing it to be set at all is so that the user can reduce interference at the expense of range by lowering the power level so fewer devices are overlapping. It's hard to get people to avoid doing illegal things when breaking the law benefits them. It's not that hard when breaking the law is pointless and maladaptive regardless of whether or not they get caught. It's notable that there have existed routers with completely open firmware and there is no epidemic of ordinary users installing shady firmware on them to violate regulatory limits. There is likewise full software defined radio hardware on the market, for which a license is required to transmit but not to buy it. Applying a different standard to consumer hardware which is available to exactly the same set of people makes no sense. > With an SDR the hardware plus software is considered the "device" for licensing purposes. If it supported unlocked or modifiable firmware it couldn't be easily/at all sold as a Part 15 device. It would be a different class of device and would require the end user to have a license to operate it. I'm not arguing about what the law currently is but rather about what it ought to be. But I also think your analogy is flawed. If the manufacturer sells a device with a potentiometer whose maximum setting was within the regulatory range, or with a fixed power output, and then the user modifies the device to install one that can increase the power output, that should be on the user. So why is it different if the user modifies the device to install firmware that increases the power output? You're essentially arguing not that the device can't include a potentiometer, but that the case has to be sealed so the user can't install one. Which in turn prevents the user or any other third party from repairing the device or supporting it past when the vendor stops caring about it, inducing widespread security vulnerabilities as users commonly continue to use operational devices even after the hardware vendor stops issuing updates. |
No I'm literally saying a company can't literally include a potentiometer that boosts power above the licensed levels. It doesn't matter if the case is sealed or screwed shut. The design will not get a Part 15 license and can't be sold. User modifiable firmware is the same thing as the power boosting potentiometer. If the user can boost the power the device is no longer a Part 15 device and needs a different license for sale and the user will require a license of their own to operate it.
It doesn't matter what you think the law should be that's what the law is. The FCC as a regulatory body doesn't care about FOSS, they care about keeping an easy to over exploit shared resource continue to have significant and extremely profitable use. If licensing keeps the system working but makes FOSS inconvenient they're going to err on the side of a working system. The FCC is far from perfect and title 47 regulations are far from perfect. But they don't exist for no reason and didn't just appear overnight to inconvenience FOSS enthusiasts.