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Spectrum and Law

Fairwave defaults to lab/no-RF mode. Transmitting on cellular bands without proper authorization is illegal in most jurisdictions. You are solely responsible for licenses, SAS grants, indoor restrictions, and type approval. HyperonX and contributors provide software as-is for lawful private networks, research, and shared-spectrum regimes only.

This section is not legal advice. It describes what Fairwave gates, and what regimes exist, so operators can map their situation to a policy profile. The authoritative matrix lives in design/spectrum-matrix.md.

What the Software Gates

Fairwave refuses to transmit until each gate in this chain is satisfied:

flowchart LR
    C[country code set] --> L[license ack recorded]
    L --> B[band allow-list entry]
    B --> E[EIRP cap set]
    E --> A[tx/arm]
    A --> R[agent safe-TX flag]
    R --> TX[RF enabled]
Gate Where Fails closed?
Country code policy record yes - unset = no TX
License acknowledgment policy record yes - recorded operator statement
Band allow-list policy yes - EARFCN outside list refused
EIRP cap policy per band profile yes - no cap, no arm
tx/arm POST /v1/tx/arm yes - per-boot, re-required
Agent safe_tx agent asserts gate + rfkill state yes - eNB process gated

Lab mode (zmq, no RF) needs none of this; the gate only matters when a real SDR is configured.

Regime Summary

Regime Basis Fairwave profile
US CBRS (3.5 GHz) FCC Part 96, SAS cbrs - certified path required
UK Ofcom SAL (shared access) individual/light-licensed community with local check
EU local licenses national regimes (e.g. DE, FR, NL local/private licenses) community
Experimental / campus research & experimentation licenses experimental
India captive telecom dept captive-network rules community w/ registration
Australia ACMA class/spectrum licences, experimental community
Lab / no-RF none needed lab (default)

Details per region: docs/spectrum-and-law/regional.md.

The experimental Profile

The experimental/campus profile is a reduced-power, confined-site, logged profile: hard EIRP ceiling, indoor-only flag, site/registration field, mandatory audit logging. It exists so researchers can run lawful experiments without pretending to be a carrier. It does not create authority to transmit - it only encodes whatever authorization the operator already holds.

Bottom Line

The gates are engineering scaffolding, not permission. If you hold no license, grant, or registration, the only supported configuration is lab mode. When in doubt, run lab mode and read design/spectrum-matrix.md.

  • Region specifics: docs/spectrum-and-law/regional.md
  • CBRS deep dive: docs/spectrum-and-law/cbrs.md
  • Checklist: docs/spectrum-and-law/compliance-checklist.md