In addition to many other security options to prevent anyone from invading your network, your router includes the so-called DFS protection. This has ended up becoming an imposition by the European Union to have the wireless spectrum under control.
We tell you why DFS protection is so important that Europe forces router manufacturers to prevent their users from deactivating it.
DFS is mandatory in Europe
DFS protection or dynamic frequency selection, is responsible for automatically selecting a frequency that does not interfere with radar systems. This is required in Europe and is what makes a router take time to be operational or lose the connection near an airport or weather station. However, it is very easy to avoid, since we can change the country and select one that does not require the use of DFS, such as India or Russia.
This is why Europe goes a step further and requires router manufacturers not to allow users to disable this protection by accessing the router settings and not to be able to change the firmware of the router to achieve this with some kind of modification.
The main advantage of using DFS channels is to increase the number of Wi-Fi channels. The channel availability verification process is legally required to avoid electromagnetic interference of the 5 GHz frequency with the radar. Sometimes it takes time for the 5 GHz Wi-Fi to appear and it is because the router is scanning the DFS channels for radar signals. And by regulation, they have to spend 60 seconds making sure they can broadcast.
Radar signals are vulnerable to interference from other devices using the same spectrum. The DFS feature allows a router or access point to detect radar signals and change their operating frequency to avoid interference. This process ensures that radar systems can send and receive accurate information.
Other illegal WiFi channels
By modifying the region for which your WiFi router is configured, you can access other channels. The use is not legal in Spain, since it can cause interference with other devices, as stated in the National Table of Frequency Allocations).
For example, one of these incompatibilities would be with medical implants. Channel 14 of the 2.4 GHz band would be reserved for “active low-power medical implants and associated peripheral units indoors.”
In the 5 GHz band, channel 161 and 173 cannot be used because they can interfere with electronic toll systems such as Via-T. Other 5GHz Wi-Fi channels are protected because they are used for the operation of airport radars, others for different defense systems and others for meteorological services.
In the youngest WiFi band, the 6 GHz band, there are a total of 34 illegal channels at the moment. Here the reason is less urgent and the reason is that the routers that equip it support all the channels enabled in the United States, which are 58, but in Europe at the moment only the first 24 have been enabled, so authorization is not given. beyond what has been enabled so far.
