FCC Planning To Free Up Additional Wi-Fi Spectrum To Help Relieve Congestion

[CES 2013] In case you couldn’t tell by the monster amount of content coming from us this week, CES is currently going on and if you’ve ever been to it, or any other kind of conference, you know Wi-Fi is a must-have as cell phone service is usually nonexistent as thousands of people converge into one convention center. The problem is, at its current 2.4MHz spectrum, often times Wi-Fi at conferences don’t work that great either, leaving you without any form of communication for hours. The FCC announced today it’s going to make some changes to help you tweet out your photo of you posing with Wolverine as fast as possible, right from the convention floor.

FCC Charman Julius Genachowski has announced they plan to open up 195 megahertz of wireless spectrum within the 5GHz band in order to “relieve Wi-Fi congestion at conferences, at airports, and in people’s homes.” The change will increase Wi-Fi speeds to at least 35 percent and the FCC is expected to review the proposal next month.

The spectrum the FCC will be opening up is currently used by the Department of Defense as well as other federal agencies. Once approved, the spectrum would end up being shared with government purposes.

Daniel Perez
Categories: General
Tags: CES, CES 2013, FCC, WiFi