A question for forum members regarding the 4G LTE Dongle for the Mavic 3

[cgmaxed]

So, it is said the dongle will not be available to North Americans. Well, that's at least what DJI is saying. I wonder what the legalities are that are preventing this. I can't imagine any laws being in the books preventing the legal use of 4g LTE drone communications. The FAA may Argue that it would cause users to fly BVLOS and cause a safety risk, but this is their opinion at this moment in time, and not a law in the books that would prevent availability of the dongle to North Americans. I wonder what's going on? I don't believe there are any laws in the books anywhere near close to being against the concept of drones being flown via a cellular network. I'll look myself, if anyone finds any, please post them.

Also, regarding the dongle. If it's sold outside of the USA and there are no laws against their import, won't North American's simply be able to order them off the Internet. Can they or can't they?

If they are unlocked all you would have to do is slide in a sim card and it would work automatically.

 

[Saladshooter]

So, it is said the dongle will not be available to North Americans. Well, that's at least what DJI is saying. I wonder what the legalities are that are preventing this. I can't imagine any laws being in the books preventing the legal use of 4g LTE drone communications. The FAA may Argue that it would cause users to fly BVLOS and cause a safety risk, but this is their opinion at this moment in time, and not a law in the books that would prevent availability of the dongle to North Americans. I wonder what's going on? I don't believe there are any laws in the books anywhere near close to being against the concept of drones being flown via a cellular network. I'll look myself, if anyone finds any, please post them.

Also, regarding the dongle. If it's sold outside of the USA and there are no laws against their import, won't North American's simply be able to order them off the Internet. Can they or can't they?

If they are unlocked all you would have to do is slide in a sim card and it would work automatically.

It may work but DJI could easily geolock the dongle using GPS to restrict where it can be used. Once the dongle is released, it will be a matter of a few days before someone tests this function for you so don't sweat it too much.

 

[MavicAir2Marc]

Being a transmission technology, it might be more an FCC thing than an FAA restriction

 

[Saladshooter]

Being a transmission technology, it might be more an FCC thing than an FAA restriction

4G cellular is an accepted tech but will still have to be delivered by someone's tower. My guess is that Verizon and others don't want a partner that is on the US government blacklist. They recently signed with Parrot to provide 4G to the new Anafi AI drone. The 4G channel they are providing is on a frequency that isn't being used by cellular phones.

Verizon is working closely with the FAA to create the backbone for nationwide cellular BVLOS, particularly for large corporations that want to inspect their property and companies that want to use the network for delivery. They are probably not in a hurry to risk their US Gov relationship by signing up DJI.

 

[TS_Thomas02]

I thought that it was just a corporate-level decision that it wouldn’t be sold in the USA market. It’s ability to be legally used in the US didn’t seem to be in question (at least by me, I could be wrong). As far as promoting BVLOS flying, I have to admit that there’s a little voice inside me saying that would be much more helpful if one were inclined towards that sort of thing. I guess I’ve mostly been interested in what marketing rationale DJI uses to promote that dongle. (They’re selling it somewhere right?) Perhaps to BVLOS-certified operators, such as what people have mentioned on this thread. I can envision it for something like SAR operations.