standards/165236: The NONE Wi-Fi regulatory restricts use of channels 12:ht/40- and 13:ht/40-

[Petko Bordjukov]

>Number:         165236
>Category:       standards
>Synopsis:       The NONE Wi-Fi regulatory restricts use of channels 12:ht/40- and 13:ht/40-
>Confidential:   no
>Severity:       non-critical
>Priority:       low
>Responsible:    freebsd-standards
>State:          open
>Quarter:        
>Keywords:       
>Date-Required:
>Class:          change-request
>Submitter-Id:   current-users
>Arrival-Date:   Fri Feb 17 15:10:13 UTC 2012
>Closed-Date:
>Last-Modified:
>Originator:     Petko Bordjukov
>Release:        10.0-CURRENT
>Organization:
>Environment:
# uname -a
FreeBSD apd3n 10.0-CURRENT FreeBSD 10.0-CURRENT #6 r231845M: Thu Jan  1 02:00:00 EET 1970     root at dummy:/crossbuild/mipseb/obj/mips.mipseb/src-head/sys/ROUTERSTATION  mips

>Description:
The current specification of the NONE regulatory domain does not permit use of channels 12:ht/40- and 13:ht/40-.

There is a large possibility that usage of these channels is permitted under the EU regulations, however I was unable to find concrete information to support this, except the contents of the regulatory database found here: http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kernel/git/linville/wireless-regdb.git;a=blob_plain;f=db.txt;hb=HEAD

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/802.11n#40.C2.A0MHz_in_2.4.C2.A0GHz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels

EU Standards:
ETSI EN 300 328 V1.7.1

# dmesg
--- cut ---
ath0: <Atheros 9220> irq 0 at device 17.0 on pci0
ath0: [HT] enabling HT modes
ath0: [HT] 2 RX streams; 2 TX streams
ath0: AR9220 mac 128.2 RF5133 phy 13.0
ath0: 2GHz radio: 0x0000; 5GHz radio: 0x00c0
--- cut ---

# ifconfig wlan0 country BG
# ifconfig wlan0 regdomain NONE
# ifconfig wlan0
wlan0: flags=8802<BROADCAST,SIMPLEX,MULTICAST> metric 0 mtu 1500
	ether <-- removed -->
	inet6 fe80::<-- removed -->%wlan0 prefixlen 64 scopeid 0x7 
	nd6 options=21<PERFORMNUD,AUTO_LINKLOCAL>
	media: IEEE 802.11 Wireless Ethernet autoselect mode 11ng <hostap> (autoselect <hostap>)
	status: no carrier
	ssid test channel 1 (2412 MHz 11b)
	regdomain NONE country BG indoor ecm authmode OPEN privacy OFF
	txpower 30 scanvalid 60 wme burst dtimperiod 1
# ifconfig wlan0 up
# ifconfig wlan0 channel 13:ht/40-
ifconfig: unknown/undefined channel number 13 flags 0x40000

>How-To-Repeat:
ifconfig wlan0 create wlandev ath0 wlanmode hostap ssid test
ifconfig wlan0 country BG
ifconfig wlan0 regdomain NONE
ifconfig wlan0 channel 13:ht/40-
>Fix:
Apply the attached patch to /etc/regdomain.xml

Patch attached with submission follows:

Index: etc/regdomain.xml
===================================================================
--- etc/regdomain.xml	(revision 231845)
+++ etc/regdomain.xml	(working copy)
@@ -1154,7 +1154,7 @@
       <flags>IEEE80211_CHAN_HT20</flags>
     </band>
     <band>
-      <freqband ref="H4_2412_2462"/>
+      <freqband ref="H4_2412_2472"/>
       <maxpower>30</maxpower>
       <flags>IEEE80211_CHAN_G</flags>
       <flags>IEEE80211_CHAN_HT40</flags>


>Release-Note:
>Audit-Trail:
>Unformatted: