microwave ovens. From my 20 story roof, downtown San Francisco, I can see 150+ 802.11 networks.
Never had an interference problem. I assume this is because the CSMA collision avoidance spec
works pretty well.>>
I have begun doing some 802.11 interference surveys in public places (downtown San Jose and along El Camino in Burlingame so far); in no case have I yet found offered loads exceeding about 2% of the channel capacity: that is, there is no interference to speak of coming from 802.11 networks. My highest AP count was about 25. Anecdotal reports from my colleagues at Tropos Networks indicate that high-power cordless phones are the biggest interference offenders. However, it is worth noting that other published data shows that network speeds do slow down when about 7 simultaneous high-rate downloads are proceeding from 1 AP, and presumably similar result would be obtained from collocated AP's run by differing organizations (since the medium is common): if the airport networks were HEAVILY used they would indeed clash.
The better question to ask is: why should the Federal government regulate what is essentially a local matter? The property owner, the airport authority, should have the right to specify what sort of equipment and activities are permitted on the airport, subject to contractual obligations to their tenants. If they are being unreasonably avaricious (as seems to be the case here), it is something to be taken up with the local political establishment, since airports are usually run by a port authority or related local jurisdiction. The folks who use the airport ought to be making the call about the benefits of additional revenues vs. the risks of losing service, rather than the FCC. This is actually an issue of some importance in the long run: the FCC and other regulatory agencies were born out of an environment in which most communications were very long-wave and high-power, with huge ranges so that interference was an inevitable issue and regulation needed to span borders. It is much less clear that such as assumption is valid for current and future short-range, low-power emitters, but if we can't develop alternative mechanisms to deal with disputes like this one, we might be stuck with the inefficient, awkward centralized regulatory model we use today.
Daniel M. Dobkin Enigmatics 1-408-314-2769 [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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