this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025

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367

Senate GOP budget bill has little-noticed provision that could hurt your Wi-Fi (arstechnica.com)

submitted 1 week ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

The cell carriers don't need more bandwith. 5G is already quite fast with the existing allocations. The only times I've used 5G and thought it's too slow has been in rural areas where the issue is a lack of nearby cell towers, not a lack of bandwidth. The cell carriers already have loads of millimeter wave bandwidth available for use in densely packed, urban areas where the lower frequency bands are insufficient.

It's WiFi that should be getting more bandwidth. Home internet connections keep getting faster. Multi gigabit speeds are now common in areas with fiber.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 1 week ago (36 children)

Next they are gonna take away amateur radio frequencies so it would be illegal to communicate outside of the internet.

Then its very easy to do censorship, just turn off power to ISPs and its information blackout.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (2 children)

It's a bad band for cellular. It's short-range and shit at penetration.

It's really not even that good for wifi unless you're close or have a mesh network with APs all over the building.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 week ago

Because of its shortcomings as a communication bandwidth, it's really, really good at cell-based positioning.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago (3 children)

mesh network

Or traditional network with Ethernet backhaul and lots of access points. I really wish mesh networks would die off honestly.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago

Like anything else, they have their place. But they've been shoved into use cases they dont fit as well.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 week ago (1 children)

So if I'm reading this right... wired Internet providers are against this due to home Wi-Fi Internet speeds and phone providers are for this for mobile speeds/bandwidth?

I don't know how I feel about this as I currently have T-Mobile home Internet and it's not the best experience... but it mostly works and it's cheaper than my previous cable provider. However, home Wi-Fi really needs 6 GHz for future IoT devices.

But I am definitely against it because Ted Cruz is for it. He obviously is getting paid/bribed by the telecoms... and he sucks.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Eh, IoT devices typically use 2.4ghz, or even 933mhz...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

I kinda meant for like future products when AR and VR combine with IoT products, but if those can work on lower ranges with those 6 Ghz devices, then great... but VR and AR will definitely need 6 GHz to be more useful.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah IoT devices don't need bandwith, they need range (at low powers) and those lower frequencies get them that. 6ghz wifi has pretty small range and is awful for IoT stuff.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Its always Cruz.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Well whoever ends up buying that band is in for a load of shit because I and a lot of other people are NOT going to stop using 6GHz WiFi

Same thing with Meshtastic. Go ahead and see just how much you'll waste your money.

[–] [email protected] 59 points 1 week ago

Yup, the band is already littered with 6g devices. It'd be a stupid purchase.

But also, 6GHz is somewhat of a useless band for carriers. It's high enough frequency that it'll get absorbed by most things yet low enough frequency that it'll struggle to really carry a whole lot of data.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I thought wifi was on 2.4ghz, and the new ones were on 5ghz?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 week ago

WiFi is on all three bands. It's not so much what's newer vs older. Newer devices tend to support 2.4, 5, and 6 and switch between them based on quality of signal and support by the WiFi network. Higher frequencies like 5 and 6GHz are generally better because there's less interference.

Cheaper devices tend to only support 2.4GHz

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

802.11a is over 20 years old, fortunately this law isn't talking about shutting down existing routers. the 6 GHZ is the next frontier to expand to, the military already owns the 7 GHZ spectrum... So the 6 GHZ is the one that can be expanded into. Of which origionally was planned to be made for the next generation of wifi... but now is going to be sold off to phone providers to use in the next generation of mobile networks.

So in short, our existing routers will continue to work as designed, but future routers will not be making any leaps forward.

Basically the choice between better faster wireless LANs, is getting killed in favor of better networks for cellphone services... of which the carriers will set the price on.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

6GHz compatible devices are already being sold. If your phone is new-ish it likely supports it, and many routers already have it.

This isn’t a “next gen” problem, it’s a “current gen bleeding edge” problem.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Current generation wifi 6E and 7 add 6Ghz which offers substantially more bandwidth / speed.

Wifi 7 also allows devices to use 2.4/5/6Ghz at the same time instead of just hard switching between them.

Would be a major setback since 6Ghz allows devices to easily hit Gigabit speeds wirelessly.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 week ago

802.11a was 5ghz, 802.11b was 2.4ghz. Both developed at the same time.

802.11g was 2.4ghz and extended b since 2.4 took off faster than 5ghz in the market.

Since g, n onwards has been used across both bands.

Since 802.11ax we now have 6ghz.

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