I think the worst outcome of this yet one more avenue gobbled up by a large tech conglomerate. My understanding is that ISM bands are supposed to be free for personal use and are the last fronts for small scale connectivity innovation
They are also free for use by businesses and governments. The rules make no distinction (other bands do have eligibility restrictions).
> last fronts for small scale connectivity innovation
Amateur radio operators would beg to to differ. You can do a lot with a relatively easy to get amateur radio license, and it is restricted from commercial use.
Nothing is being gobbled.
I mean, I disagree with your opinion here. It's entirely possible that we end up in a world where corporations use all of the unlicensed spectrum to operate their corporate networks (on "user-owned hardware" that is centrally coordinated and controlled), leaving very little of it to alternative uses. There is only so much unlicensed spectrum so this is very much a realistic outcome, especially if the "user-owned devices" are coordinated and designed to maximize the company's use of the spectrum. I think "gobbling" is a pretty accurate description of this.
What you are saying is that our current legislation around these bands permits that use, in the same way that it might be legal for Amazon to house all of its workers on public land in some states. The question to ask is whether this is actually good.
So for Amazon's (or any) system to swamp the ISM band(s) they would need to absolutely saturate an area with their radios. That would end up running at cross purposes with their network since their own base stations and user devices would end up interfering with each other.
While I don't trust Amazon to do the "right" thing I do trust them not to step on their own toes.
Why does there need to be a distinction? What's the difference between amazon's sidewalk network compared to an at&t wifi router?
We are both commenting on an article that describes how a massive corporation (Amazon) might be deploying large-scale mesh networks on this band, and using this to drive huge numbers of devices at near the maximum feasible bitrate. This is obviously a speculative article and maybe none of this will come to pass. But within the bounds of speculation, this seems qualitatively different than what's happened (as of today) on the 2.4 and 5.8 GHz bands.
Looking at my WiFi network right now, I have 2 APs and 25 clients connected (8 of which are amazon-). When I turn on my TVs, those power up a few additional clients (Chromecasts and FireTVs) on WiFi. I can see between 12 and 18 other networks depending on when I scan (plus who knows how many that aren’t broadcasting SSIDs).
Is Amazon likely to be able to put more devices on Lora than I have on WiFi now? More concentrated than NYC or Paris WiFi is today?
The maximum bitrate the article references is not a Shannon-Hartley bitrate limit, but rather a fairness-limited maximum transmission duty cycle to ensure other, also unlicensed users can access the spectrum.