So...
Trying out a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit bookworm Lite on my Pi 3B+ tonight I discovered that the allowable WiFi 5GHz frequencies for country code GB (UK) is still out of date!?
Since 2020, 5GHz WiFi channels 149 to 165 have been officially allowed, without DFS (radar detection), for indoor use with short-range devices up to 200mW in the UK by our regulator OFCOM. 1 2
Living in small densely populated areas means 2.4GHz channels are pretty much useless for anything but very low bandwidth tasks, and the only other non-DFS 5GHz channels, 32-48 are also heavily congested (not least of which because anyone trying to use any of DFS channels will eventually find their AP/router dumping them back down to 32-48 when there's an inevitable false-positive radar signal detection!)
The problem is significant enough that these forums have numerous references to advice to misconfigure their country codes on their Pis (likely a breach the law - but what I'm going to be pushed to do too) in order to get their Pis to join their networks on these now perfectly legal to use channels.
Personally speaking, my Pis are now the only remaining devices we have that I can't connect to our 5GHz WiFi APs (even my Ubuntu distros, also debian based, appear to have this correct now.)
Q: Assuming this is a software or firmware based limitation (which appears to be the case) how can I constructively push/help to get the Raspberry Pi OS WiFi channel map for GB/UK updated?
- Julie
___
Footnotes
1 From page 27 Section 5 of OFCOM document "Improving spectrum access for Wi-Fi Spectrum use in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz band":
Trying out a fresh install of Raspberry Pi OS 64-bit bookworm Lite on my Pi 3B+ tonight I discovered that the allowable WiFi 5GHz frequencies for country code GB (UK) is still out of date!?
Since 2020, 5GHz WiFi channels 149 to 165 have been officially allowed, without DFS (radar detection), for indoor use with short-range devices up to 200mW in the UK by our regulator OFCOM. 1 2
Living in small densely populated areas means 2.4GHz channels are pretty much useless for anything but very low bandwidth tasks, and the only other non-DFS 5GHz channels, 32-48 are also heavily congested (not least of which because anyone trying to use any of DFS channels will eventually find their AP/router dumping them back down to 32-48 when there's an inevitable false-positive radar signal detection!)
The problem is significant enough that these forums have numerous references to advice to misconfigure their country codes on their Pis (likely a breach the law - but what I'm going to be pushed to do too) in order to get their Pis to join their networks on these now perfectly legal to use channels.
Personally speaking, my Pis are now the only remaining devices we have that I can't connect to our 5GHz WiFi APs (even my Ubuntu distros, also debian based, appear to have this correct now.)
Q: Assuming this is a software or firmware based limitation (which appears to be the case) how can I constructively push/help to get the Raspberry Pi OS WiFi channel map for GB/UK updated?
- Julie
___
Footnotes
1 From page 27 Section 5 of OFCOM document "Improving spectrum access for Wi-Fi Spectrum use in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz band":
2 From Wikipedia5.3 Having considered responses to the January 2020 consultation, we have decided to remove
DFS requirements from the 5.8 GHz band for indoor Wi-Fi use up to 200 mW EIRP. We will
continue to monitor the impact of DFS requirements, outdoor restrictions and power limits
on Wi-Fi use in other 5 GHz bands, including 5150-5250 MHz. Our reasoning is set out in
full in this section.
United Kingdom
The UK's Ofcom regulations for unlicensed use of the 5 GHz band is similar to Europe, except that DFS is not required for the frequency range 5.725–5.850 GHz and the SRD maximum mean e.i.r.p is 200 mW instead of 25 mW.[61]
Additionally, 5.925–6.425 GHz is also available for unlicensed use, as long as it is used indoors with an SRD of 250 mW.
Statistics: Posted by jewelie — Sun Feb 11, 2024 2:16 am