I'm guessing maybe the "European Commission" threw them off, because it's an EU entity (basically the executive branch), not "Europe wide" one, which the name kind of implies. But then "EU" also implies "Europe wide" in its name, and people seem to kind of get the difference most of the times.
The rules the EU establishes will also apply to the EEA, and in practice will almost certainly also be adopted by the UK, which has tended to take its lead from the EU on such matters since Brexit. So, while pedantically these are not rules for Europe, _for practical purposes_ they likely will be.
And even the EU itself is pretty fragmented with various overlapping areas with different rules.
As someone who's studied European relations, I can tell you that it's a real mess, and the fact that journalists don't accurately reporting the facts definitely isn't helpful.
It really should have been EUR for Europe, and EU as in European Union.
I do think the media should aim to do better so agree that the Register should have used the correct term.
Which is, of course, true; however, in English conversation, it's often nothing more than pedantry. In Spanish it makes more sense, since there is a separate demonym for a US person that doesn't co-opt the term "American."
Outside of Romance language speakers born on the American continents, I agree that everyone seems fine calling US-born persons "Americans" without much confusion nor gnashing of teeth.
Which is all kinds of weird because - what about Mexico and Canada? And what about the ‘United states’ part?
It’s just to disambiguate from ‘Americano’ as in what others in South America sometimes use to refer to latin Americans and as a little bit of a FU to the USA, hahah.
One of the most famous soccer teams in Mexico is even called “Club América”, obviously this doesn’t refer to the US.
That ambiguity disappears if you call it "the Americas", but many places see America as one continent (including Latin America, parts of Europe and the Olympic flag)
And in French the inhabitants of "les Etats-Unis" are "Etats-uniens". I've taken the habit of referring to them as USAians, which often gets negative reactionsand remains rare - but I find it is the most accurate demonym and I'll keep pushing it.
I look forward to the world inventing demonyms for the citizens of the European Union, because at least it will mean that our emerging national body is getting mindshare !
And, being on an island, British people are probably never going to stop thinking of “the continent” as at least a little bit of a different thing from themselves.
Radio, by virtue of physically not caring about borders, is a really really hot mess, with lots of very powerful and very monied interests floating around.
Everyone understood that it was the relevant nearly pan-European political entity which was actually designed by the geographical designation.
The distinction between EU and Europe is very important. They're "word stealing" something as neutral as a geographical concept, to make it political.
But in this case here, probably if EU legislate on this, others non-EU european countries will follow
To be even more pedantic you have to throw in Africa as well, as that is connected by land to Asia just like Europe is! Now we have the supercontinent Afroeurasia which contains like 85% of the worlds population.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-opens-entire-6-ghz-band-ver...
Whereas for mobile operators it would be very useful in outdoor/indoor (airports etc) urban areas that are very busy.
Can’t they be just another user of a well established standard or do they want to abuse the crap out of it?
If other types of devices also use your channel, you'll have to shut up and wait for airtime even longer. Having WiFi and cellular co-exist mean that they are both fighting eachother over airtime, and both spending a lot of time silent.
It's preferable to avoid channel overlap when the services need to co-exist.
2.4GHz is completely unusable in urban environments, because you're getting interference from two dozen neighbours. And everyone has a poor connection, so their "handy" nephew will turn up the transmission power to the maximum - which of course makes it even worse.
6GHz barely makes it through a concrete wall, so you're only receiving your own AP, so you have the whole bandwith mostly to yourself.
On the other hand, cellular networks are well-regulated: if an airport's entire network is managed by a single party they can just install extra antennas and turn down the power.
And it's not like cellular operators will be able to use it often: outdoor use falls apart the moment there are a bunch of trees or buildings in the way, so it only makes sense in buildings like airports and stadiums. Why would the rest of society have to be banned from using 6GHz Wifi for that?
Besides, didn't 5G include support for 30GHz frequencies for exactly this application? What happened to that?
I agree with this and the fact that 6GHz should still be available for wifi, but this whole bandwidth frenzy over wifi has always seemed like a meme for anyone except power users. A 4K netflix stream caps out around 15mbps, so >95% of typical home users will be just fine using 2.4/5GHz inside their own homes.
I'm no expert and only speak from personal experience. When the signal is weak, you don't have the whole bandwith, you only get low throughput. Ideally you would want a strong, high penetration signal (low frequency) and all users on separate channels. It's of course impossible in densely populated areas.
Whenever I have to deal with setting up WLAN in the office or at home, I hate the experience and I try to use wired connections wherever possible.
It gets really bad when signal is difficult to distinguish from noise because (for example!) everyone is talking at roughly the same power level. Think crowded bar with everyone yelling at each other.
When one is significantly louder than others, even if the others are not that quiet, it’s not a big deal unless at your ear/antenna they have the same loudness. Think concert with big speakers for the main act.
6ghz is better for many isolated networks right next to each other precisely because the others ‘voices’ lose power so quickly. You don’t have the competition for attention. Think ‘every couple in the bar gets their own booth’.
Wired connections are even better, because the amount of noise required to be unable to tell apart signal from noise is orders of magnitude higher - like ‘noisy welder right on top/EMP’ levels. Because the wires can actually be shielded. It’s like having your own hotel room.
Just today, there’s a news report in India where the major telecom companies have lobbied that the entire 6 GHz band be reserved for mobile services and that even part of it shouldn’t be left for unlicensed WiFi. [1]
The problem in India is that the penetration of wired broadband is very low, and the telcos don’t seem to be interested in expanding it as much as they are in grabbing more of wireless spectrum.
I don’t believe it’s a good move to reserve these exclusively for mobile services. We (in general) need more unlicensed spectrum for innovation. Let the companies figure out another way out.
I also know that these bands are already allowed for unlicensed WiFi use in the US.
[1]: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/j...
mvandermeulen•2h ago
buddhistdude•2h ago