Filed under: Airport
UK bandwidth restrictions to affect Airport Extreme use
Macworld UK reports that UK bandwidth restrictions may negatively impact Airport Extreme use in that country. Airport Extreme uses both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies to communicate. In the UK, Japan, Austria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia and Spain, regulatory restrictions prohibit wide-channel operations, so Airport Extreme users won't be able to use part of the 5GHz frequency. Macworld's article suggests that this puts a limit of a 2.5x speed increase over 802.11g rather than the 5x increase that's achievable by using the entire 5GHz frequency with 802.11n. It's hard to say how noticeable this will be in practice or whether users will be able to "work around" these restrictions. Anyone with better knowledge about how channel operations work and how wide-channel restrictions will affect performance, please jump in in the comments.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Stuart said 2:16PM on 1-26-2007
Oh great, I'll just add that to the list of living in rip-off Britain.
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Burni said 3:04PM on 1-26-2007
Erm, this isn't exactly a 'secret' or Macworld magazines' 'discovery'. It's on the badges all over the UK Airport pages and has been since MacWorld.
But yeah, I was pretty annoyed when I found out - but as a UK user I'm used to disappointment :D
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Duncan said 3:46PM on 1-26-2007
Couldn't you just get an American version of the firmware to make it use the full bandwidth? I don't think they'd make a special UK version of the hardware.
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ossiejnr said 2:25AM on 1-27-2007
Not sure if you can buy one from the US Apple online store (credit cards/address etc) but I'll certainly be buying one on my next visit to the US.
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Doug said 4:14PM on 1-26-2007
Appleinsider has some screenshots from the new AirPort Utility software that shows a "Region" selection when setting up networks. Maybe Apple means to make it the user's responsibility to set the correct region. If that is the idea, anyone in the UK could just set the region to United States, but they would be liable, not Apple.
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Jon Moss said 5:43PM on 1-26-2007
Hmmm .. not good at all. Seriously considering cancelling my order.
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Louis Klaassen said 8:27PM on 1-26-2007
But what is the likelihood of the UK authorities finding out that you are using your Airport Extreme Base Station at 5 GHz in your own home?
I don't like in the UK but I'm guessing that it is very low.
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eric said 1:48AM on 1-27-2007
Hey, if i buy the unlimited version from Hong Kong and bring it back to UK ebay do you guys think i can make a fortune on it?
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Sevenupcan said 8:06AM on 1-27-2007
I don't understand why bandwidth restrictions would effect what frequencies we are allowed to use? It doesn't make any sense to me.
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Sevenupcan said 9:10AM on 1-27-2007
Ok so I re-read the article and it makes a little more sense. However if this is true then how have current 802.11n draft routers like Netgear coped with this?
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Pixelbender said 5:30AM on 1-28-2007
Well I know I'll be selling mine on eBay and offering shipping to UK, Japan, Austria, Estonia, Germany, Latvia, Slovakia and Spain.
Doh....
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Maff said 10:01AM on 1-30-2007
"UK bandwidth restrictions may negatively impact Airport Extreme use in that country"
you mean "those countries" don't you?
the UK is made up of England, Scotland, Wales & Northern Ireland, all countries in their own right, the UK is not a country
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King Fysel said 4:26PM on 1-30-2007
"negatively impact". Ha! Six syllables where one would do: 'hurt'.
And I second #12.
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Matt said 11:32AM on 2-22-2007
Comment 9 is about the quality of this article, which should have been reviewed by someone with an engineering background before it went out.
You should mention that spectrum allocation (not "bandwidth restriction" varies from territory to territory, and that equipment designers and marketers should bear this in mind if they want to make a universal product. By all means set up your region incorrectly, but don't be surprised if your phone, baby alarm, other kit doesn't then work.
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james said 4:21AM on 3-31-2007
to writer of comment 12: the U.K is made up of constintuent states. they are not countries in their own right.
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