14 DAY TRIAL // Not too long ago, the restrictions concerning wireless transmissions in the UK were lifted, allowing in-car wireless broadcast using your iPod to become legal; but now, it seems that the existing technology bumped into another legal issue. Unfortunately, the country where this problem appeared is UK, but this time it's about the AirPort Extreme...
Apple decided to use both 2.4GHz and 5GHz bandwidth for the new 802.11n-ready AirPort Extreme wireless router, but probably they didn't expect this to become a problem for UK users. While most manufacturers, including Belkin, are using the 2.4GHz frequency only, exactly the same as 802.11g standard specifies, Apple used the optional 802.11n feature that allows usage of either the 2.4GHz or 5GHz wireless spectrums.
By operating in both frequencies mentioned earlier, Apple's AirPort Express is able to support the full 802.11 standards spectrum - A, B, G and N. As Apple said, the 5GHz frequency is less prone to interferences, so you'll get a more reliable wireless connection, and if your network doesn't work as it is supposed to when using one spectrum, you can always switch to the other.
Unfortunately, most good things have also a dark side, and in our case, it seems that the speed of the AirPort Extreme 802.11n devices will be limited in the UK, Japan, Austria, Estonia, Germany, Slovakia, Latvia and Spain. While the new 802.11n devices are five times faster in the US, in UK and the other countries mentioned, they are only 2.5 times faster, due to the UK government restrictions that prohibit wide-channel operation.
What remains to be seen is if Apple manages to take full advantage of the new technology it has in all the countries without breaking the law, or users will start to "avoid" it their own way. All I can say is that I hope some quick solutions to this issue will come up, and I know that I'm not the only one who's hoping that...