You can demand changes all you want, and I would fully support that, but until the rules do change (which they probably won’t), we do need to at least attempt to abide by the rules that are in place.
My personal opinion, is that 6ghz part-101 licensed links should be phased out, and the AFC should be improved to allow for higher powered 6Ghz PTP links. Just don’t allow any new licenses or renewals for part-101 links in the 6ghz band, and in 10 years all of the incumbents will be gone, or better yet, allow an exception for existing licensed radios to continue operating under AFC rules, after license expiration, even though they lack GPS hardware, etc. Unfortunately, there would (understandably) be a lot of resistance from existing license holders.
I’m not sure who’s “gaslighting” here, but anybody that’s publicly advocating blatantly ignoring EIRP limits should be ashamed of themselves. It makes the entire industry look bad, and will hurt us all in the long run.
1 Like
EIRP limits are counter-productive because they penalize gain. If the goal is to minimize interference, then the solution is more gain, not less gain.
EIRP limits are counter-productive because they systematically penalize those who follow the rules while rewarding those who don’t. It creates a framework of victimless crimes and perverse incentives. This isn’t rules-based order, this is the opposite of that.
No one publicly advocated for blatantly ignoring EIRP limits. Framing it that way is exactly the gaslighting I was referring to, along with that “gain is not good” antenna vendor. Otherwise I agree with everything else you said.
It’s not really true that EIRP limits penalize gain. Without EIRP limits, I can just crank up transmit power as high as a want to compensate for using low-gain antennas. EIRP limits force me to use higher gain antennas, since increasing receive gain is the only tool that I have to increase the signal level.
I would like to see something along the lines of the point-to-point EIRP exception that exists in the 5ghz bands, except tied more directly to antenna gain/beamwidth, rather than only applying if it’s PtP and not PtMP (technically, you can run an omni in 5ghz and the PtP exception would still apply), but having no EIRP limits, or even just significantly higher EIRP limits would be a disaster.
1 Like
The basic intent of EIRP limits is to limit the distance a single can travel and prevent high gain antennas from sending signal further than low gain antennas. However, gain focuses the signal in an intended direction and limits the amount of signal transmitted in unintended directions, which is why EIRP limits are counter-productive.
You said, “… a 2.4m dish also isn’t going to be realistic for most wisps - don’t get me wrong, it’d be a nice option to have, but I can only think of a couple of our towers out of 150+ that we could actually put something like that big on, even if we wanted to.” This is an example of EIRP limits penalizing gain and unnecessarily constraining your ability to realize your equipment’s full potential.
It would be better for all involved if we used output power limits instead of EIRP limits and had an AFC system that took into account directionality.
My other antenna company, Cyber Antennas, is in the process of building our first high performance wideband 6 GHz 1.8m antennas. It will be fun to see what is possible with the ePMP Force 4600c radio, even while respecting counter-productive EIRP limits.
Gain is always good.
The purpose of EIRP limits is to try to keep noise levels somewhat reasonable, so that everybody has a shot at the spectrum being useful. Using highly directional antennas does reduce the problem that EIRP limits are trying to address, but it doesn’t completely eliminate it.
Completely ditching EIRP in favor of a flat transmit power limit would cause problems. If we stuck with the current 30dBm transmit power limit, that means that I can now throw a 13db omni, and be blasting out 43dBm EIRP, or if we sectorize it, you could easily get that up to 50dBm on an omni-directional system. That would have the practical effect of making noise levels so high in a lot of areas that it would simply make a lot of stuff that currently works fine non-functional. If you set the transmit power limit lower than that, for example, dropping it down to 23dBm to compensate, then you’re needlessly causing problems for systems that are currently working fine using low gain antennas, and using larger antennas isn’t practical.
The better solution would be a point-to-point rule similar to what we already have in the 5ghz band, but rather than making it only apply if a system is point-to-point, tie it directly to antenna beamwidth - something like “for every degree beamwidth is reduced below X degrees, EIRP may be increased by X db”. Granted, that would still leave some room for abuse by allowing systems with a massive number of sectors, but if the starting point was, say, 25 degrees, it’s unlikely it would be much of a problem.
I agree that there’s plenty of room for improvement in the existing rules, but EIRP limits, in general, are not a bad thing.
1 Like
I agree with everything except your conclusion. EIRP limits are a bad thing. They penalize gain and they create perverse incentives. In 2025, it is absurd that we are asking users to honestly input antenna gain and reduce output power accordingly. Then, if they fudge it because they want to provide the highest quality services, we put them in the same category as those who cause intentional interference. We could do so much better.