August 2009 -- Wi-Fi can be considered the first successful large-scale communication application under a
license-exempt use of the radio frequency spectrum regime. For many Wi-Fi has become the
preferred means for connecting to the internet – without wires: at home, in the office, in
hotels, at airports, at the university campus. An impressive Wi-Fi based ecosystem has
emerged and is still evolving: every laptop provided with the Intel Centrino chipset has
built-in Wi-Fi functionality; in the third quarter of 2007 over 43 million WLAN network interface
cards were shipped from Taiwan, 37 percent more than the previous year; a market scan
executed in 2007 identified 180 vendors providing 3,289 different client devices with Wi-Fi
functionality, including notebooks, PDAs, mobile phones, streaming music and video
players, digital cameras, printers, video beamers, gaming devices, and home
audio-systems; the count of Wi-Fi hotspots world-wide is well in excess of 206,000 in 135
countries; and in the USA over 400 cities and counties are being reported with either operational municipal networks, networks under deployment, or plans being made for Wi-Fi
networks (based on: De Leeuw, 2006; De Leeuw, 2007; Kamp, 2005).
In 1985, this development had been triggered by the US Federal Communications
Commission (FCC)[1] when it opened the 915 MHz, the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands designated
for industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) applications for the use by radio systems, under
the condition that spread spectrum techniques would be used (FCC, 1985).
Interestingly, the 1980 MITRE report that investigated the potential benefits, costs, and risks
of spread spectrum communications on behalf of the FCC did not identify a strong
requirement or need from the industry to assign radio frequency (RF) spectrum for spread
spectrum based applications. The report concludes that spread spectrum technology is
inherently more complex and thus more costly (Mitre Corp., 1980). However, the report did identify that spread spectrum techniques are inherently more resistant to interference.
Moreover, the report identified the ISM bands as bands ‘‘. . . in which spread spectrum
techniques may be able to improve the utilization of the spectrum . . . [as these bands] are
relatively unsuitable for applications requiring guaranteed high levels of performance.
Indeed, since users of the ISM bands are not nominally protected from interference, it can be
argued that any productive use of these bands frees other spectrum resources that are
needed by applications requiring protection from interference’’ (Mitre Corp., 1980). In
hindsight, this should not come as a surprise. The Ethernet, which would become the
standard for wired-LANs, was still subject of a major standardization battle within the IEEE in
the early 1980s. Moreover, recall that the Apple II had been launched in 1977, while the IBM
PC would be introduced in 1981, and the Internet would be named in 1984. Mobile
computing equipment like laptops and notebooks still had to be introduced.
Citation
"Unlicensed: The Case of Wi-Fi" by Ing Victor Hayes & Ir. Wolter Lemstra, 5 INFO 57-71 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
Related Scholarship
"Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference: Guest Editorial" by Charles L. Jackson, 5 INFO (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Unlicensed to Kill: A Brief History of the FCC Part 15 Rules" by Kenneth R. Carter, 5 INFO 8-18 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Mark Fowler's Introduction of Mike Marcus" by Mark S. Fowler (April 2008), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Wi-Fi and Bluetooth: The Path from Carter and Reagan-era Faith
in Deregulation to Widespread Products Impacting Our World" by Michael J. Marcus, 5 INFO 19-35 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Unlicensed: The Case of Wi-Fi" by Ing Victor Hayes & Ir. Wolter Lemstra, 5 INFO 57-71 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Grazing on the Commons: The Emergence of Part 15" by Henry Goldberg, 5 INFO 72-75 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
"Has "Unlicensed" in Part 15 Worked? A Case Study" by Tim Pozar, 5 INFO 86-91 (August 2009), Quick Links: Unlicensed Wireless Policy Conference
