Question about wireless in foreign countries

[David A. Desrosiers]

I've known for awhile that the US restricts wireless to channels < 12,
but the actual hardware does channels 12, 13 and up, to work in non-US
countries.

Does anyone know for sure if gear sold in the US (routers, wifi cards,
etc.) will "Just Work", when used in countries outside the US?

If not, I could bring one of my smaller routers and just use that (they
run dd-wrt, and I can change the channels to > 11 if needed).

Just looking to see if I need to reconfigure or stash some more hardware
into my bags for my trip overseas.

Thanks in advance, all!

[Eric Michaud]

David,

The simple answer.

Yes.

All the 802.11 certified gear will work with other 802.11 certified gear
in other countries as long as it's with A/B/G/N and your gear supports
those modes also.

WIFI is a great example of standards working across borders. I work with
a lot of folks around the world that utilise it to bypass telecoms,
setup links at over 20 miles at the extreme(at lower speeds of course
with modification) in areas that don't have communications development,
and a number of other uses. (Some firmware modification might be needed
for those cases)

Keep in mind though, your laptop wireless card will generally still work
with the cafes in Casablanca and NYC.

Your power might be another story, if you have a device that only works
with 110v instead of 220v you'll need to get a power converter.

For channels above 12 there might be an issue with broadcasting those
channels on your router but your cards in your laptop will still work.

It's generally the routers that get locked out of those features not the
other way around.

Does this help?

Cheers,

-Eric.

P.S. As you've said your familiar with dd-wrt. If you know how to do an
install then you shouldn't have any worries when you travel if you don't
mind tinkering.