Why did the user space regulatory daemon ever exist?
A. Due to various regulatory restrictions imposed by the FCC (and equivalent governmental bodies in other countries), we are not able to provide a solution where end user modification of regulatory compliance is allowed. With our older wireless adapters, the regulatory enforcement for transmit power, frequency, modulation, and so on, was enforced within the firmware and microcode. Newer regulations added more restrictions including those related to operation on channels which overlap frequencies used by radar. Starting with the Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection, some of the logic that was previously executed on the adapter was migrated to the host operating system–including portions which could influence the operation of the radio’s regulatory compliance. When our Linux engineers started engaging with the radio hardware and microcode developers, the path was already set for what was going to be used with the initial releases in early 2006. Our options at that time were to
