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I can see that most of the gadgets that use proprietary protocols use 433MHz, 915MHz, or 2.45GHz, but I don't understand why. 433MHz is highly regulated in the US and 915MHz can not be used in Europe. Why is that noone uses other frequencies?

What unlicensed frequencies can (or should) be used for proprietary wireless communication? Can you please help me finding a whole list of frequencies that can be used for an unlicensed wireless communication? And maybe some issues that has to ba taken into account when you select a frequency?

Thanks in advance!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Why do you have to use proprietary wireless communication? \$\endgroup\$
    – Jeroen3
    Commented May 12, 2017 at 9:06
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    \$\begingroup\$ There's a lot of information missing to answer your question: E.g. (1) Where do you want to operate it? (What jurisdiction?) (2) What do you understand by "unlicensed" (3) What data rate, error rate, power and distance do you need? (4) What kind of Information do you want to communicate? ... We can not read your mind. \$\endgroup\$
    – Curd
    Commented May 12, 2017 at 9:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ Start with en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_WLAN_channels and en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_multimedia_radio; for full informaion, see ITY recommendations, country legals; ... \$\endgroup\$
    – pasaba por aqui
    Commented May 12, 2017 at 9:16
  • \$\begingroup\$ Ask the licensing authority. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chu
    Commented May 12, 2017 at 11:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ They why's of Radio spectrum allocation is mostly political and off topic for this site. If you want to know whats available contact the institution of the country you wish to allocate radio spectrum in. \$\endgroup\$
    – Voltage Spike ♦
    Commented May 12, 2017 at 15:41

2 Answers 2

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Why is that noone uses other frequencies?

The radio spectrum is crammed full of users, some licensed, some military and there are a few spaces left over that unlicensed users are permitted to use. Here's what the US looks like: -

enter image description here

If you want a more detailed view type in the link shown on the picture. You can also find details on line, for each specific band how you can use that band. For instance, maximum power, duty cycle etc..

Here's a little snap shot of more detail: -

enter image description here

And for the UK there is this chart: -

enter image description here

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Not that long ago, all countries had their own frequency allocation plans and there was no international standards what-so-ever. Meaning that exporting radio products was a complete nightmare.

With mobile phones and wireless becoming mainstream products, there are some attempts to standardize certain bands.

EU has started to harmonize European frequency bands (EU decision 2006/771/EC), making at least some bands standardized in EU. Similar attempts are made in South-East Asia by the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity (APT).

The problem is that all countries had already allocated all of their frequency bands for certain designated uses before people started to realize that standardization was necessary. Getting everyone to adapt to a standard is therefore painfully slow work, with lots of politics involved.

For example it would seem that the 434MHz vs 902MHz bands boil down to trade barriers between EU and USA. EU has allocated various miscellaneous crap of peripheral interest on the 902 band and the US has done the same on 434. It wouldn't be hard to fix this if both parties actually wanted to.

World-wide it is pretty much only the 2.4GHz band that can be exported almost everywhere.

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