Industrial, Scientific, and Medical Bands

The industrial, scientific, and medical radio band refers to a group of radio bands or parts of the radio spectrum that are internationally reserved for the use of radio frequency (RF) energy intended for scientific, medical, and industrial requirements rather than for communications.

The use of ISM equipment generates electromagnetic interference that interrupts radio communications that make use of the same frequency. Therefore, this equipment was restricted to specific frequency bands. Generally, the communication equipment that operates in these bands should tolerate the interference created by ISM equipment, and therefore users do not have any regulatory protection from the use of ISM equipment. In the US, the ISM bands are 915MHz, 2.4 GHz, and 5.5 GHz, whereas 2.4 GHz is the global unlicensed frequency and has increasing amounts of interference.