On Fri, 8 Aug 2003 18:42, Sean 'Shaleh' Perry wrote:
> several manufacturers have expressed concerns over giving out details of
> their 802.11{b,g,??} chips. The explanation given is that users could try
> to pervert the frequencies or power output of the cards for nefarious
> purposes.
I am under the impression that there are slight variations between countries
on the permitted frequencies for in the range that 802.11 uses. So 802.11
devices sold in different countries have different capabilities. Maybe Intel
wants to sell different device drivers for different countries to deal with
this (and not make a device driver that can do all frequency ranges). This
would be much easier than modifying the hardware as vendors otherwise have to
do. At one time Thinkpads sold in Australia had the modem tracks cut on the
PCB to comply with the Australian telecoms laws being different from those of
other countries. It would have been cheaper for IBM if they could have done
this in software (and better for us too as software is easier to reverse ;).
I know some people who have achieved good benefits from transmitting 802.11 at
higher power than allowed, if the Centrino chipset allows increasing the
power through changing registers then those people would surely like to know
how...
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