@Fae 

Thank you Fae for your informative reply and offer to help.

Per your request, the product S/N is 22074X8002007 and the vendor was amazon.ca.

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B07953S2FD/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Yesterday I reached TP-Link customer support in China and spoke with a very supportive, technically informed and patient rep. She first requested that I update the firmware to the latest v5.0 and stayed on the phone while I did this. That did not resolve the issue, still only the same 5 channels available., i.e. those in the UNII3 band (Ch 149-165) She then checked with other staff and determined that the problem arose because I was in Canada and was using the Canadian firmware. Her, i.e. the TP-Link company view, was that 'The government of Canada does not allow outdoor access points to operate on any channel other than those five and thus the EAP225-Outdoor must have all the other channels disabled to comply with legal requirements'. I said that I had seen information that led me to believe that that this was not correct, that the limited channels made the device unsuitable for me and that I would be returning it to the vendor. She offered to pass along my comments.

 

The information that led me to believe that the TP-Link statement is not correct is available at

https://www.semfionetworks.com/blog/5ghz-regulations-in-canada-2018-update

 

This indicates that the Canadian regulations do in fact allow outdoor access points to operate on the four UNII2 channels (52-64) and on nine of the twelve UNII2-Extended channels (100-144 channel range) but only if DFS (Dynamic Frequency Selection) is implemented to detect and avoid frequencies on which radar is operating. I surmise that TP-Link has chosen not to implement DFS for the EAP225-Outdoor, or at least not with the Canadian Firmware. The result is that the EAP225-Outdoor is able to operate on only 5 rather than 18 20MHz wide channels, 2 rather than 8 40MHz wide channels, and 1 rather than 3 80MHz wide channels. This device is thus quite handicapped. I will look for another device unless the channel restrictions can be removed quickly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Fae 

Hi Fae,

The Canadian regulations on LE-LAN (License Exempt LAN) has not been updated since 2017 when RSS-247 version 2 was published.

https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/smt-gst.nsf/eng/sf10971.html

 

Sectiion 6 is for LE-LAN.

DFS is detailed in Section 6.3.

Section 6.2.1:  channels 36,40,44,48 are not allowed outdoors (some exceptions for vehicles)

Section 6.2.3:  channels 120, 124, 128 not allowed at all due to weather radar

Section 6.2.4:  refers to channels 149-165, such as power limits

Secton 6.3: DFS details

Section 6.4: manufacturers have to prevent us from doing something we are not allowed to do, like enable channels 36-48 outdoors, or disable DFS functionality (so those channels would keep transmitting even if they detect DFS radar)

 

@Fae 

 

Thought i'd add my support for this.   I am looking this week to purchase a wireless ap solution and ive learnt the hard way over the years to do my research in advance.  This shortfall for the EAP225 has prevented me from going down the TP link EAP route.

The number of available channels depends on whether you are using 20/40/80MHz channel width. Use 20 or 40. And you may need to ask your neighbour to reduce their channel width to be more considerate of other users.