The only discussion right now is reserving part of the spectrum for various commercial or military purposes (which would be encrypted)

However, the FCC can’t do this willy-nilly. They must make a proposal and solicit comments.

My organization submitted these comments on behalf of Meshtastic users against licensing the lower end 900mhz to keep it open for all of us

https://consumerchoicecenter.org/consumer-choice-center-submits-fcc-comments-to-protect-radio-frequency-for-open-source-projects-and-amateur-radio/

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thank you! I remember seeing the note about comments

At this point I've sent in comments for so many proposed policies, many of which were deeply unpopular with Americans and had thousands of critical comments, and it doesn't seem to make a difference (though if you're with the BPI, maybe you have insight on this - I'd love to be wrong!).

Practically speaking - if they do reserve part of the spectrum, what does that mean in practice for meshtastic users?

They would be “commercializing” part of the band, meaning that it would be reserved only for certain license holders, usually a private company (for example a GPS firm) or some government or military use.

The unlicensed band allows people to connect nodes together at a reasonable frequency that can be achieved with our small Meshtastic devices without mega antennas