[Battlemesh] FCC Contacts about Wifi Regulations

[Paul Gardner-Stephen]

Hello,

I'm thinking of putting something in from the perspective of the Serval
Project, but want to run our thoughts past the community first.

For our next generation of Mesh Extenders (basically an Ath9k board +
900MHz packet radio), we are hoping to get them FCC and EC certified, and
available for sale.  Lack of development funds necessitates that we have
only one version of the hardware for all target markets.  So what we are
planning to do is to have the power lead include several additional pins,
where the power cable indicates the regulatory regime that applies to the
unit, and also whether 3rd party firmware can be loaded.

That is, to modify the regulatory regime, you either need the right cable
for that country, or alternatively, you wire up a "developer cable," that
allows you to install your own firmware.  In other words, we place a
hardware barrier to prevent abuse through trivial software reconfiguration,
but still make it easy for the development community to load their own
firmware.

What are people's thoughts on this approach?

Paul.

On Fri, Aug 5, 2016 at 6:09 AM, Eric Schultz <eschultz at prplfoundation.org>
wrote:

> All,
>
> I wanted to let folks at Battlemesh know that the FCC reached out to prpl
> Foundation about their U-NII Security Requirements. While we've discussed
> this on some public prpl lists (openwrt at lists.prplfoundation.org and
> fcc at lists.prplfoundation.org), I wanted to also pass it along here.
>
> As background, staff from the FCC contacted us in late June to set up a
> meeting about the U-NII requirements. It was very introductory and we
> didn't get into details but they did express that they wanted to continue
> the dialogue. We've reached out to the FCC to try to setup a meeting
> between the FCC and important open source community members, including in
> the OpenWrt/LEDE community, but as of yet nothing has been agreed upon.
>
> While the dialogue is still early, the FCC has asked that anyone
> interested file comments on their docket with suggestions about ways to
> address wifi interference as well as the pros and cons of different
> approaches. I believe they are looking to try to finalize rules in the next
> few months so I encourage folks to submit their comments as soon as
> possible.
>
> To submit comments, please visit and https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings and
> using Proceeding No: 15-170. I strongly encourage interested parties to
> contact the FCC through this mechanism.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Eric
>
> --
> Eric Schultz, Community Manager, prpl Foundation
> http://www.prplfoundation.org
> eschultz at prplfoundation.org
> cell: 920-539-0404
>
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>
>
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