what does the English letter means on the Wireless LAN Compliance Lookup page?

[Steve Zhou]

Hi,

I'm seeing those -C, -K, -L works as the value for the Regulatory Domain column here, https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/assets/prod/wireless/wireless-compliance-tool/index.html

My questions is,

1. who defines these letter-based Regulatory Domain? Is it Cisco or is something standard? I have only seen the Regulatory Domains like FCC, ETSI but not those letter-based. 

2. In addition to the the different supporting channels, is there anything else different among those letter-based Regulatory Domain?

3. is it alphabet-sorted? does -K means more as compared with -C?

I just need a properly way to understand and read those letter-based Regulatory Domain.

Thanks! 

[Ric Beeching · Accepted solution]

1) The letters are assigned by Cisco and countries I believe are generally grouped by their legal regulations. If a country has different regulatory limits than others then they are likely to have different codes e.g. -B for US and -E for Europe (obviously Europe is a continent but most countries follow the same regulatory rules set by ETSI). The middle east often uses -E because they adhere to the same rules.

2) Whilst the supported channels are important, the different regulatory domains and therefore the letters indicate different limits on other things such as power levels, indoor/outdoor usage of channels and whether they are subject to DFS (radar protection) or not. There are likely other characteristics but those are the main ones we tend to consider.

3) The alphabet order doesn't mean anything, they are just randomised assignments at that time. Here in Australia it is -Z but that doesn't mean it is any less important than the others ;). Just different rules.

The compliance tool just provides a very convenient way to confirm what country code you should consider as some countries don't have their own regulations and prefer to rely on trusted ones. For example, many middle eastern countries just follow the ETSI rules and utilise the -E code.

Thanks,
Ric

[Steve Zhou]

thanks for the information. One follow up question, how can we tell which letter refers to which country? Like you said, -B for US, and -E for Europe. How do I know what does -C, -K stand for?

-Steve

[patoberli]

You can use the country lookup tool to find this out: https://www.cisco.com/c/dam/assets/prod/wireless/wireless-compliance-tool/index.html
But typically you order the models based on the country you are going to use it and will receive the correct model.

[Ric Beeching]

Your original link is the best source of information on country codes as I don't believe Cisco maintains a document for them anymore.

As Patoberli says, you tend to input the country you intend to deploy in, select the usage and AP type which will give you the available AP model. For example, if I were fortunate enough to be deploying an AP in the Bahamas I would select that, along with the controller based option and whichever model I plan to deploy.. et voila it turns out they use the -E code like most of Europe as well:

Cheers,
Ric

[Steve Zhou]

I am looking at Malaysia. There are -C, -K for Controller-based platform. Is there a definition for them? For example, -C might not support UNII 2E band, but -K does. I would like have a complete definition/specification for these regulatory domain.

thanks!