Back to News
Advertisement
Advertisement

⚡ Community Insights

Discussion Sentiment

55% Positive

Analyzed from 1196 words in the discussion.

Trending Topics

#wifi#region#tvs#ever#frequencies#don#regulatory#illegal#within#band

Discussion (40 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

zamadatix•about 2 hours ago
It should probably be noted changing the regulatory region of an RF device may result in you using illegal frequencies in your area depending on the combination of which region you're in and which region you're setting it to.
embedding-shape•about 2 hours ago
Yeah, not sure if author knows, they certainly don't share if they understand this or not, but these things aren't available because the some governments say those frequencies are illegal to use. Turkey for example has multiple frequencies under 5Ghz WiFi that is banned, hence consumer don't get to use 5Ghz WiFi. If you change that, you're breaking the law and you might get a visit, depending on how hardcore they are about the rules. Tend to be pretty strict and swift payback when it comes to using frequencies you shouldn't, as they're used for other stuff and easily seen when other traffic appears.
delamon•about 1 hour ago
> Turkey for example has multiple frequencies under 5Ghz WiFi that is banned, hence consumer don't get to use 5Ghz WiFi.

Are you sure? According to wiki, there are plenty allowed 5GHz channels in Turkey.

fxd•about 1 hour ago
Wrong - plenty of 5G here
jshier•43 minutes ago
5G the cellular connection, or 5GHz bands for wifi? GP was talking about wifi.
tigereyeTO•30 minutes ago
In addition to the other (great) reply pointing out the difference between 5G and 5Ghz, there is also the nuance of channels within the 5Ghz band. While the band may be lawfully used within a region, some channels within that band may be banned.

So it’s not enough to say “we have 5Ghz wifi here so it’s fine” because there are many channels within that band which may not all be treated equally.

yardie•44 minutes ago
It's wifi. The client and the base have to negotiate a channel they both can see. If the AP is compliant for it's region than you can assume the client will have to be as well.

BTW, I'm someone that use to by US region coded 802.11b wifi devices to get the 13th channel. Except for exploring, it was rarely useful since none of my other devices could connect on it.

mixdup•27 minutes ago
You will still be making transmissions on the illegal frequencies even if there is no one on the other end of the connection
Avamander•about 2 hours ago
If it's a station (client) then it's unlikely, as long as your APs are compliant.

With some chipsets it can end up being entirely ass-backwards - if you use an Intel WiFi chipset, a nearby AP can broadcast the wrong region and cripple your connectivity.

Outdated regulatory databases and firmware efforts by vendors have generally made both illegal and legal usage beyond ch 1-12 at 2.4GHz rather difficult.

StrLght•36 minutes ago
TV is a client. If I remember correctly, it shouldn't transmit anything (unless connected) other than probe requests during active scanning.

Which could still be illegal, but I don't think anyone will realistically investigate a low-power device sending a few packets occasionally.

BlackRabbit1•about 2 hours ago
You mean that this helicopter hovering about my home is looking out for me?
_davide_•about 1 hour ago
Oh no, again
izacus•about 1 hour ago
This is about a WiFi client - on WiFi networks the AP station chooses frequency and manufacturers/driver writers fuck up legal frequency lists and regulatory codes all the time.
0xc133•about 1 hour ago
Why the hell would you ever let a TV on any network?
bcraven•22 minutes ago
So I can run Plex, iPlayer, Netflix, etc etc

The majority of content that people watch is distributed over the internet, so our TVs are connected thus.

TheNastyPatty•about 1 hour ago
Guy who just woke up from a 20 year nap
thesuitonym•27 minutes ago
``The voice came from an oblong metal plaque like a dulled mirror which formed part of the surface of the right-hand wall. . . The instrument (the telescreen, it was called) could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely.''

``The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.''

pdpi•6 minutes ago
That's a needlessly snide take.

Any device inside my network that talks to the outside world is a potential vulnerability. TV manufacturers aren't exactly known for their stellar development practices, and dodgy apps on TVs are being used as VPN exit points for cybercrime or scraping. Then there's the part where smart TVs are adding ads to their home screens and other random places.

I want my monitors and TVs to be completely dumb. Just a display, the necessary circuitry to plug the display into a bunch of input ports, maybe the necessary circuitry to function as a KVM switch, and nothing else.

flacebo•about 1 hour ago
He is right though.
tigereyeTO•28 minutes ago
I bought a new TV in 2026 and refuse to connect it to a network. For good reasonS (plural).
flacebo•about 1 hour ago
Nice workaround. Feels pretty stupid that you have to do that. Sounds like they choose the easy way to comply with the regulations. They could probably just have blocked certain frequency ranges.

Although I'm still fully convinced that TVs just got worse for the consumer since they became "smart". My extended family had to replace perfectly good TVs three times because the new version of a streaming app did not work anymore.

Add stuff like running ads on an expensive TV, running spyware that sends screenshots even of your HDMI source back to the company (possibly exposing your passwords and everything), the continuous nagging about new versions and ToS (with dark patterns to accept sending voice data home), and I feel like the only sane option is to never ever give internet connection to these TVs. Use a separate device for streaming.

artisinal•41 minutes ago
Recently when I started an LG TV, there was an unskippable ad for a local delivery service. I pressed the home button and it told me "Smart services not available right now". After the ad I could go to the home menu.

If this was my own TV it would have been thrown in the trash.

simondotau•36 minutes ago
If my LG TV did that I would return it under Australian Consumer Law.
rootsudo•31 minutes ago
Since you have ssh access to webos, how is it to remove the telemetry, ads and other such? Is webos better than a generic TCL for such antics? The TCL can be rooted and is android based but I’m not up to date on current rom configurations, etc.
ctippett•4 minutes ago
My TV is several years old at this point, but I've never had a single ad show up on it. Telemetry is easily blocked via DNS filters and the homebrew software blocks system updates.

Modern versions of Apple TV, Plex, Disney, etc all work fine. The only time I ever watch YouTube is on the TV because it has SponsorBlock baked into it so I never see an ad there either.

kwanbix•about 2 hours ago
I don't get it, why can't they just change the region in the settings?

I was able to on my LG. Nice TV, worst firmware ever. It had an issue with Wifi. It basically will not connect once or so a week. You needed to change, you guess it, the region. So I will keep changing from Germany to Spain to Ireland to Germany to Etc. I sent pictures, videos, emails, links to youtube videos to LG support, they wouldn't care, they would just deny it. In the end I bought a Fire TV Max and that was it. But what a horrible support experience LG never again.

pzmarzly•about 2 hours ago
If LG ever removes or restricts Developer Mode, I am selling my TV the same day.
functionmouse•about 2 hours ago
new locked down spyware TVs are so cheap, who would want to buy and move -your- locked down spyware TV?
ctippett•about 2 hours ago
Jailbroken LG TVs are the panacea of locked down spyware TVs.

Although like OP, if I ever lose the ability to run root, then that's the day I look for a new TV (lord have mercy).

msh•about 2 hours ago
I don’t think I will ever again connect a tv to the internet
kosinus•about 2 hours ago
I was playing around with LG TV homebrew a while back. Still have the same TV, and in the age of AI, I'm considering putting a coding agent to work on a dump of the filesystem to see what it'd take to run stock Linux on it.
physhster•about 1 hour ago
Android had (has?) a similar issue with the hotspot feature where it will not turn on in a region where 5 GHz is more regulated than in the US but will also not give you any warning about it.
hawshemi•about 3 hours ago
yea... LG policies are real shitty. I didn't have 5Ghz Wifi on my TV. why? cuz I'm in middle east!
sorenjan•about 2 hours ago
Sounds more like a legal issue with permitted spectrum use than an arbitrary LG policy.
preponderant-pa•about 1 hour ago
It seems like OP lives in Iran. It seems like at least a good part of the 5GHz band is available there. [1]

[1] https://www.spinics.net/lists/linux-wireless/msg262022.html

hawshemi•about 2 hours ago
Well, I have Sony and Samsung (both middle east regions) but they dont have any restrictions in these areas. I only see these kinda quirks with LG all the times.
Avamander•about 2 hours ago
It's more likely an out-of-date regulatory database that predates 5GHz being allowed in those regions.
ValdikSS•about 1 hour ago
Linux's wireless-regdb has proper 5G regulatory information for at least SA, CY, EG, QA, at least since 2017, just checked. The TV in the repo is 2025 year model.
jhfdbkofdchk•about 2 hours ago
"Saudi Arabia's CITC hates this one weird trick!"
xyst•33 minutes ago
lg used to be a great tv/monitor manufacturer. Even webOS was praised amongst users. Their OLED displays were top notch.

Then almost overnight. They have been making very awful decisions across all layers.

Just another case of enshittification or something else?