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by AnarchismIsCool 533 days ago
Was waiting for this response...

It's a long game. Yeah, we can't just say "fuck it, everyone go nuts" tomorrow. There are satellite downlinks that cant be readily changed, equipment capex that needs to depreciate etc. What we should be doing is adding and expanding ISM space as aggressively as we reasonably can and refusing to issue new exclusive licenses without an extremely good reason (and probably exclusively for public/civil purposes).

2 comments

Do we really need to allow Industrial use of RF across the whole spectrum though?

Maybe we need a new definition of public use at “reasonable EIRP” without the industrial heating and whatever other weird uses of RF are out there.

The caveat should be (as it's always been) only radiate as much as you actually need to, and not having/buying sufficient shielding is not an acceptable "need to" argument. Microwaves share spectrum with WiFi but unless something is horribly wrong turning on a microwave doesn't jam every wifi access point within a mile.

I agree though, reasonable EIRP is something we need to talk about. For instance, there should probably be more of a logarithmic equation for calculating an EIRP alternative that allows more effective power in beam forming systems but to a sane limit. In other words, don't handicap people trying to be responsible with where they send signals but that doesn't mean you can build an absolute laser of an antenna array and start screaming at satellites coming over the hill behind your receiver.

This I can get behind.