WASHINGTON-A government-industry meeting last week on protecting military radar from new 5 GHz Wi-Fi operations appears to have confirmed progress-but not completion-of testing analyses of dynamic frequency selection technology to be embedded in new unlicensed wireless Internet products as early as 2006.
“With the completion of the field testing, it looks as though the process for developing and testing DFS functionality for 5 GHz devices has been an unqualified success. We are probably only a few months away from seeing new unlicensed wireless devices-that are capable of protecting sophisticated radar-available in the market,” said Scott B. Harris, a telecom attorney with high-tech Wi-Fi clients who participated in the Dec. 20 meeting.
Harris credited policy-makers and engineers at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Defense and Federal Communications Commission for efforts in tackling a difficult technological hurdle that could come to represent a major spectrum-sharing success.
A source close to the matter was more circumspect, saying there is more work ahead in interpreting laboratory and field tests of 5 GHz Wi-Fi DFS reliability
Hanging in the balance are hundreds of additional megahertz at 5 GHz for Wi-Fi service in the United States. The FCC allocated an additional 255 megahertz at 5 GHz for unlicensed Wi-Fi devices in November 2003. DFS technology will be active in those 255 megahertz and another 100 megahertz previously designated for unlicensed wireless use at 5 GHz.
