Unlicensed and licensed
Most of a LoTek network runs on unlicensed spectrum: bands anyone may use without a license, provided the equipment is certified and stays within the power limits. In the United States these rules are set by the FCC, chiefly in Part 15 of its rules. Unlicensed means shared, so a network has to live with its neighbors’ Wi-Fi and they with it.
A few links, mostly backhaul, use licensed microwave bands. A licensed link is coordinated so that nobody else may use the same frequency on the same path, which makes it predictable over long distances. LoTek’s spectrum team handles coordination and filings for every licensed link.
The bands we use
- 5 GHz: rooftop nodes and hub access radios. Good range through light obstructions and plenty of channels, but crowded in dense neighborhoods.
- 60 GHz: the backbone between hubs over a few hundred meters. Very high capacity, and absorbed by oxygen and rain, which keeps it short-range and largely free of interference.
- 24 GHz: longer backbone links where 60 GHz cannot reach, such as ridge-to-ridge relays.
- Licensed microwave at 6 and 11 GHz: backhaul links to tower sites and between networks in the same city.
Radar avoidance
Parts of the 5 GHz band are shared with weather and military radar. Radios using those channels must listen for radar and move off a channel when they hear it, a requirement known as dynamic frequency selection. Our firmware handles this automatically. What stewards need to know is that a hub may change channel on its own, briefly, and that this is the radio obeying the rules, not a fault.
Power limits
Every band has limits on transmit power and antenna gain. The firmware enforces them for each model and country setting, and no one may change those settings or fit a different antenna to get more range. If a link is too weak, the answer is a better path or another node, not more power.
Being a good neighbor
Choose backbone channels away from the busiest home Wi-Fi channels found in the survey. Point antennas at what they need to reach rather than across the whole neighborhood. If a resident complains of interference, take it seriously, visit and measure. It is usually something else, and occasionally it is us.