Isen notes the following: Hendricks is concerned that as 802.11b gets popular, its very popularity will make it harder to use. The 2.5GHz band [sic: should be 2.4 or 2.45 GHz band] could become so crowded that nobody will want to go there. Densely spaced 802.11b transmitters will make it more difficult for receivers to distinguish desired signals from undesired ones. Hendricks fears that people will respond by trying to amplify (or otherwise boost) the 802.11b signal. Indeed, such hardware hacks already abound. ... Virtually every 802.11b hardware hack is illegal, he says. And this is only part of the destruction-by-popularity story. Other devices – like portable phones, Bluetooth devices, and (soon to come) radio-driven lighting – operate in the same 2.5GHz [sic] frequency band.
[80211b News] Glenn's onto something here. 802.11 and Bluetooth interfere with each other. I've experienced this interference myself. Also, if you have certain types of portable phones, it can keep your 802.11 from working. And, at the WWW conference last week, I would occassionally accidentally hook up to a "non official" node. Not a big deal, Windows XP makes it pretty easy to switch, but for a newbie type of user, it'd create confusion and cause a visit to the tech support desk at the conference. What will happen if everyone in the world had several 802.11 devices? How many devices can take the same band? [Scobleizer Radio Weblog]
