Are Arris routers FCC compliant?

[Scooterit]

I have noticed many times that Arris routers provided by Comcast / Time Warner have a very strong WiFi signal. Much stronger than any other wireless router.
For example I am seeing multiple neighbors that are located a couple of hundred feet away from us. In the past I have compared an Arris router with a UniFi LR set to the maximum power settings. Still the Arris wins all the time :-/

Not even to speak of the Xfinity hotspots that are installed at business locations without their consent. These things have a Nuclear power.

 

[azazel1024]

Yes, they are FCC compliant. The Unifi LR is 27dBm max transmit power with, I assume, 2dBi omni antennas within it for an ERP of 29dBm. It is rather powerful, but the max limits are 30dBm with an ERP of 36dBm. I doubt that the Arris or Xfinity hotspots are hitting 36dBm, but they may be closer to 31-33dBm.

Also, seeing and usable connection aren't always the same thing. Also depends on what you are connection with. Lastly what performance can you actually get out of the base station.

I can SEE 3 of my neighbors networks from within my house and they are 120ft, 150ft and 250ft away from my house. They are also -86dBm, -89dBm and -92dBm respectively (with only exterior wall of my house between me and those neighbor networks. Any interior walls or go in to my basement and all of the networks dissapear) with my laptop. The strongest one is an open wifi network and I can connect to it on my laptop, barely. As in I better have it flat on a desk, and not stand between the laptop and my neighbor's house, keep the curtains open. Speed test returns about 300Kbps down and 80Kbps up.

On my tablet I can only see the stronger two at a dB or two lower strength. My phone can't see a single surrounding network except my own.

In my old townhouse network I could see a heck of a lot more networks than that, but in general, other than my immediate couple of neighbors, none were strong enough to have a usable signal. All of the Xfinity stuff was basically strong enough that if you were on the side walk 30ft from the house, you could connect and get a crappy, but semi-usable signal, if immediately in front of the house in question (aluminum siding probably didn't help). InSSIDer could still show a dozen surrounding networks with 4-5 Xfinity ones, but basically only the immediately closest couple would be in anyway usable.

I guess that is a large part of what I don't get about the ISP "free wifi" network deal. I can see with businesses it being useful to ISP and maybe the business too. For residential, it doesn't serve much of a purpose unless you are visiting, in which case, ask for your friend's wifi password. The closest you might get to a seamless wireless experience is if EVERY single house in something like a townhouse neighborhood had Xfinity, et al. Otherwise there are so many coverage gaps just walking down the sidewalk would cause constant drop outs. Forget about a single family home neighborhood and "Xfinity" connectivity.

 

[Scooterit]

Yeah I understand about not being able to actually use the connection. A specially from a small device like a smartphone with a weak transmitter and small antenna.

I am just wandering why they radiate much further than needed and occupy the limited spectrum :-(

 

[azazel1024]

Because they can. And because the telecos are honeybadgers.