The FCC is asking for comments on a proposal to require manufacturers to lock down computing devices

[Chrysalis]

Well I have found out first hand how restrictive asus UK 5ghz is.

If I was using the latest asus firmware then I would be limited to just channels 36-44 on 5ghz. Up until today the past 6 months or so I have been using channel 36.

Today I started noticing lots of issues on my mobile phones, and also my laptop which is idling on a irc network over wireless was pinging out every 5-10 minutes.

I ran a ongoing ping to the bbc which was all over the place, but averaging 300-400ms (usually 7-9ms). Also with some dropped packets.

I kept it going whilst trying channels 40 and 44, 40 was a mild improvement, 44 was just as bad. Ran the site survery tool on my router and right now is 18 other routers competing on the 36-44 range in my area. Very predictable, I could tell 36-44 for the wide AC ranges was extremely inadequate. It only worked ok whilst all the main isp's were not supplying 5ghz routers, now they are its as bad as 2.4ghz and I think is actually worse.

Now the good news is I noticed all my android devices on 6.0 or newer now support channels 100+ on wifi like they supposed to, so looks like the android dev's fixed it, shame on asus of course for still blocking those channels. Since I am using john's fork and have set the region to disabled, I was able to switch the router to channel 100 and could see instantly on the pings a steady 8-9ms on my laptop. My phones now seem stable again, a anag check taking about 1 second instead of 10s plus. I am the only one in my area using a high channel, so thankfully the isp manufacturers are sticking to the really restricted frequencies, at least for now.

My firetv box is android 5.0 tho and now needs to run on 2.4 which buffers, so that will need to be switched to ethernet My ps4 I havent tested yet.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Sorry if I've missed something, but I'm confused about your post?

If I was using the latest asus firmware then I would be limited to just channels 36-44 on 5ghz..

Is that really the case? The last time I loaded Merlin's firmware on my UK router it enabled all the valid channels.

Since I am using john's fork and have set the region to disabled, I was able to switch the router to channel 100

I'm also on John's fork. I haven't had to do any region mods to get the higher channels.

 

[AndreiV]

Also in the UK and I have >> 36, 40, 44, 48, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 132, 136, 140 nothing has changed at all.

 

[ColinTaylor]

Also in the UK and I have >> 36, 40, 44, 48, 100, 104, 108, 112, 116, 132, 136, 140 nothing has changed at all.

You should also have 52, 56, 60 and 64 but as you have a tri-band router I'll assume that those channels have been allocated to the other 5GHz radio.

 

[Chrysalis]

Interesting, I do sort of remember channel 100 not been available to use unless I unlocked the region. Either my memory has gone bad or asus fixed it in newer versions.