The reason 6Ghz was introduced with WiFi 6E and 7 was because 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz was very busy.

My question is why isn’t there anything in between? Why isn’t there a 3Ghz, 3.5Ghz, 4Ghz, etc?

Also, what if things that require very little data transmission used something lower than 2.4Ghz for longer range? (1Ghz or something?)

  • kersploosh
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    2422 days ago

    2.4 GHz and 5 GHz are both “ISM bands.” These are frequencies that regulators have set aside for unlicensed use.

    Fun fact: 2.4 GHz is free to use because of microwave ovens. Microwaves are really noisy around 2.45 GHz. Rather than try to regulate their radio emissions, or make people license their kitchen appliances as radio transmitters, the FCC allocated that patch of spectrum for free use. Any device that can tolerate the noise can use that bit of the radio spectrum.

    • sbirdOP
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      122 days ago

      Ah so the stuff in between that has things like radio stations?

      • @edgemaster72@lemmy.world
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        722 days ago

        I’m not sure what exactly you mean by “in between” here (between 2.4 and 5 GHz?), but commercial radio in the US is at much lower frequencies than wifi bands. AM radio is typically measured in KHz (the range is something like 600-1400, I can’t be bothered to look it up), while FM radio is in MHz (around 87-108 MHz).

      • kersploosh
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        322 days ago

        Not like commercial AM/FM radio stations playing music, but radio in the more general sense. 5G cell phones and satellite-to-earth communication systems use that frequency range, for example.

        • sbirdOP
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          121 days ago

          makes sense, using WiFi with those frequencies would make it noisy and clogged up, esp. in crowded cities