The FCC is proposing that the unlicensed bands used for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Lora and billions of devices could be used for communications with orbiting satellites.
This is insanity on nuclear: FCC Eyes Easier Satellite Connectivity for Laptops, Phones, IoT Devices | PCMag
Says it would limit devices to Part 15 power levels – but provide for high gain antennas. Aimed from space, this would disrupt local Part 15 devices on the ground. The FCC seems to acknowledge the problem by saying it would restrict satellite use to rural areas – so screw people living in rural areas who use Part 15 devices?
This would disrupt Wireless Internet Service Providers (many of which use Part 15 links), home security systems such as Wi-Fi enabled security cameras, potentially disrupt home Wi-Fi applications [1], disrupt Bluetooth devices in use around homes, especially if outdoors – could even disrupt things like Tesla’s vehicle control app that interfaces to the car over Bluetooth links – while driving in rural areas.
[1] My garage/shop is about 100 feet away from my house. I set up a WiFi AP at the edge of my house to link to a WiFi repeater at the garage, to extend Internet access to the shop. For a while, I basically had part of my home office in the shop. Plus our car and our Garmin navigation wants to have Internet access for various software updates. The FCC’s proposal would likely cause interference to these links. I live in a town of 29,000 and am surrounded by “rural” countryside – it’s unclear how they would classify this – and it is exceedingly unlikely that signals could be configured to be “rural” only without interfering with the adjoining town and applications there. RF is not something that can be aimed with a precise cut off at the edge of the community – it does not work that way.
