[ale] Buy your wifi routers now...

[Alex Carver]

The consumer routers like Linksys/Cisco, DLink, etc. are all monolithic
SoC-based systems.  The firmware controls both the radio and the rest of
the functions.  If and only if the companies split the functions between
two chips (one radio chip and one everything else chip) there would be
no problems with the current ruling.  However that's very unlikely which
means that pushing third-party firmware onto the device would be near
impossible by these rules.

Most likely what I'd end up doing has already been mentioned, a box that
runs wired firewalling/routing/NAT and then an internal AP for the
wireless.  I still need to find a single-board system that has dual GigE
NICs.  I don't want to do Ethernet-over-USB if possible.


On 2015-09-02 07:56, Pete Hardie wrote:
> Does anyone know if consumer routers are built so that the radio firmware
> is separate from the packet control firmware?  Or are they monoliths?
> 
> 
> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 10:49 AM, chip <chip.gwyn at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> So reading through this it appears the purpose is to keep people from
>> modifying the firmware of the radio itself, not the packet processing
>> capabilities.  Basically, don't allow unauthorized modification of the
>> radio's firmware to exceed or operate outside of FCC required ranges.  The
>> documentation specifically calls out UNII devices, which is a 5Ghz wireless
>> device.
>>
>> --chip
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 10:38 AM, Charles Shapiro <hooterpincher at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Kill this law. Kill it now. Kill it with fire.
>>>
>>> https://libreplanet.org/wiki/Save_WiFi/
>>>
>>> -- CHS
>>>
>>> On Wed, Sep 2, 2015 at 10:21 AM, DJ-Pfulio <DJPfulio at jdpfu.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 09/02/2015 09:34 AM, Paul Cartwright wrote:
>>>>> On 09/02/2015 09:04 AM, Alex Carver wrote:
>>>>>> Buy your wifi routers now before you can't change their firmware:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>> http://hackaday.com/2015/08/31/fcc-introduces-rules-banning-wifi-router-firmware-modification/
>>>>> suggestions on a cheap one to buy to keep as a spare??
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> For inside your LAN, doesn't matter much.
>>>>
>>>> For the edge router, build a pfsense box and use a separate wifi-AP.
>>>>