EU and US WWAN and WLAN antennas

What is the difference between the EU and US WWAN and WLAN antennas?

Both work well on a UK WWAN SIM card, and no issues with WiFi using either US or EU antenna.

Is there some regulatory issue with US Wireless antennas? Hence the "wings" over the antennas on a CF19 for instance.

Pictures show the WWAN/WLAN antennas on a CF31. Other than the colour the look exactly the same to me.

 

They look the same to me. Probably get better service with the eu antenna.

 

Yes.

The 2.4 GHz wifi band isn't exactly 2.4 GHz, but really consists of 13 frequency bands slightly higher than that. The two highest channels (or shortest wavelengths, rather) aren't permitted to be used in the US and some other countries. Might be they're reserved for military or scientific use, but either way they are permitted in the EU and Japan.

The antenna can be optimised to take the lack or inclusion of these two channels into account. I'd expect both antennas can indeed pick up all 13 channels, but that the US version will do better on 1 through 11 and the EU/Japan model better at 12 and 13. That's just my presumption though. You could try and conduct some experiments to make certain.

Mind that manufacturers take shortcuts; not all cards or their drivers allow you to choose 12+13, even if you are outside of the US. Reason being that this simplifies production, logistics and driver support. I've tried 12 and 13 on my own network once and quickly found that many clients could no longer pick up the SSID. You could take advantage of that since few of the neighbours will be broadcasting there.