Google, Microsoft, Comcast Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-03/google-microsoft-comcast-say-verizon-s-new-cellular-tech-could-wreck-wi-fi

by walterbell • 11 years ago

324 175 11 years ago

bloomberg.com

dangerpowpow• 11 years ago

why is spectrum so expensive? only Goliath size corps can afford it.

Someone12343• 11 years ago

Because physics doesn't like startups I guess...

Or to phase that another way: There is a lot of spectrum. But very little spectrum that is suitable for mobile phone usage. When a resource is finite and valuable, it gets expensive.

If you want a "real" solution that would allow startups to play in the ballpit? Pass new national laws which split the cellular companies into two organisations, one that offers consumer services, and another which exists to maintain/install/upgrade the physical cellular network (and who then resells access).

It actually makes little sense to have competing and exclusive cellular infrastructure. The infrastructure should just be like a public resource, like a road, and the cellphone companies should be like shipping companies, utilising a public resource (the road) to sell a service (shipping stuff).

I'd be all for the government using eminent domain to seize every single cellphone tower in the country, and then reselling access to them to every cell phone company equally. But it isn't very capitalist...

rayiner• 11 years ago

So there is a lot of theoretical economic work on how to allocate limited rival resources like spectrum (and water). The consensus is that the efficient way to do it is auctions. I have quibbles with certain assumptions in that research,[1] but for stuff like cellular spectrum (where the owner can achieve extremely high utilization), auctioning to private companies is probably quite close to efficient. It would be more efficient if we got rid of restrictions on use and transfer.

Yes, that does mean that you end up with mega-corps providing your cellular service. But the same is true for say retail. Amazon will eat the whole industry. Physics as well as economics strongly favor mega-corps. Startups have advantages, but specific and narrow ones.

[1] See https://www.scribd.com/doc/292530059/Spectrum-Allocation-Loc...

sitharus• 11 years ago

One infrastructure company wouldn't work so well. You'd need at least two, preferably 3, with the ability for the resellers to quickly and easily switch.

Here in New Zealand we have three providers, but we have national number portability. This means I can switch networks with no fees (unless I have a contract with a termination clause) and no number downtime. It helps competition a lot.

cobaltblue• 11 years ago

How do you see the consumer services competing on anything but price, speed, and usage without breaking net neutrality? How do you see a "shipping" future for cell phone companies any different than the FedEx/UPS duopoly?

timthorn• 11 years ago

Pass new national laws which split the cellular companies into two organisations, one that offers consumer services, and another which exists to maintain/install/upgrade the physical cellular network (and who then resells access).

That was the shape of the cellular networks in the UK in the early days of mobile telephony, IIRC.

ljk• 11 years ago

you answered your own question! it's to keep the bar high so only the Goliath can play

rfrank• 11 years ago

you can't exactly go make more spectrum.

pyvpx• 11 years ago

because there is only one and certain parts of it can be monetized to great affect? you can get licensed spectrum in a point to point fashion for the cost of a modest used car, in some places.

thrownaway24242• 11 years ago

Most of the usable spectrum is being wasted on stupid junk like navigation, military and police who are using ancient, inefficient technologies. The bandwidth-specific value we're getting from the ISM bands dwarf nearly all other uses.

There would suddenly appear to be huge amounts of available spectrum if the authorities would just yank bands from the most useless legacy allocations and auction them off.

ianlevesque• 11 years ago

Or better yet add them to the unlicensed pool.

Aloha2• 11 years ago

While some of the spectrum held by the military would be useful, most of it wouldn't be, same goes for whats currently used for police too. The issue with lower frequency spectrum (say, sub 550 mhz) is it starts to interact with the atmosphere and can result in some off propagation patterns (like tropospheric ducting).

I also suspect that the users of that spectrum (save for the military which has a huge amount of lightly used spectrum) might disagree with you as to how useless their technology is, I mean would you take the spectrum currently held for ham radio operators and sell it off?

Navigation (GPS) is pretty spectrum efficient, so I'm not really sure what you're getting at there.

sliverstorm2• 11 years ago

What bands are you talking about? The spectrum map doesn't seem to show the wholesale wasting of spectrum you seem to imply, especially in the GHz range which is most useful for cell phones et al.

As you mention police, I'll also point out public service frequencies (Part 90) recently went to 12.5kHz bandwidth (half what hams use) and there is discussion of going even further.

The really legacy allocations like broadcast TV, AM radio, and radionavigation are in spectra that Johnny Startup probably isn't interested in. Data rates are pretty slow at 30kHz.

wyldfire• 11 years ago

The bandwidth-specific value we're getting from the ISM bands dwarf nearly all other uses.

This is totally true! And it was a "junk" band to begin with. What if they allocated another unlicensed band that had room for 3-4x as many exclusive 802.11 channels as the current one?

hardwaresofton5• 11 years ago

Sitting at about 0 worries. The second Verizon (or any other company's) new wireless tech started to mess with WiFi in practice (as in, at the consumer level), and was clearly attributable, they would instantly be hit with a giant tidal wave of bad PR.

Wifi works. People will not be very happy if you single-handedly break all their wifi-enabled things.

ethbro• 11 years ago

You're assuming people understand there's a limited amount of bandwidth available in a given amount of wireless spectrum.

smaddox• 11 years ago

Indeed; more generally, you're assuming people have any idea at all how the device in their hand connects to the internet, or even what the internet really is (it's a series of tubes!).

Most people live in a state of ignorant bliss.

nerevarthelame• 11 years ago

And what if it's not really clearly attributable? Imagine if there are only problems in areas with particularly high densities of LTE-U users. And even then, the problems could be sporadic, resulting in occasional wifi disconnects, or generally slower speeds. Wifi service wouldn't be "single-handedly broken," but service quality would definitely be degraded. And consumers won't be able to explain or prove why it's happening, so they aren't likely to get out their torches and pitchforks.

threeseed2• 11 years ago

And poor network performance can often be attributed to multiple components.

Your WiFi is slow ? Restart your computer, upgrade your operating system, clear your browser cache, move your router closer to you, buy a different modem etc. There is plenty of room for deniability that interference is the root cause.

codeka• 11 years ago

Depends. If Google et al are right and they have studies which show it degrades performance under certain conditions, then all it would take is one class action to get off the ground.

People will pile on, and the evidence that Verizon knows their technology can cause problems is already mounting. That they're pushing their products through without reviews or certifications could be seen as evidence of negligence or maliciousness.

hardwaresofton5• 11 years ago

I think in this case, the best interests of the companies that were receiving support complaints/bad press for broken products would be motivated to find and prove out the problem.

If some product company (let's say, a router company) experienced some enormous increase in customer service and damage to brand image, I'd like to believe they'd eventually put quite a bit of money into finding out why they're losing money.

Could you imagine a world where a service rep has been instructed to ask whether a customer has any Verizon devices in the house? And to just give up, if they do, and blame Verizon? Would be terrible for Verizon's brand, pretty sure they're not ready (and probably don't want) to partition consumers who use internet-connected devices into pro-verizon and anti-verizon.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

Wifi works. People will not be very happy if you single-handedly break all their wifi-enabled things.

If you gradually deploy your non-solution while upselling them the cool new product, they won't even notice until it's too late.

gst7• 11 years ago

I'm still amazed how mostly everyone is praising T-Mobile for violating net neutrality with free music and video streaming. Instead of looking at the long-term effects (prices for other types of data will stay higher), everyone just looked at the short-term effects ("we get free video streaming _and_ they made data cheaper at the same time too").

hardwaresofton5• 11 years ago

Except Verizon can't upsell everyone, and if you're suggesting that they can lead a push to replace wifi as we know it today, I would definitely put money on that NOT happening.

Pigo• 11 years ago

Does this make you think that there's more going on with this story than meets the eye? It doesn't seem a giant like Big Red would be ignorant to something like this. They must have an end-game that's not being portrayed here. However unconcerned they seem to be towards bad PR, I'm surprised they'd risk being the reason iWhatever's aren't syncing.

hardwaresofton5• 11 years ago

Didn't really think there would be more to the story, though there very well could be. I think this is more the case of:

1. We made something awesome in labs (by bending/breaking some traditional rules)

2. It's X% faster than traditional connections/has all these properties, let's get to market ASAP

3. Oh, in the real world, this tech doesn't play nicely with other tech because of how we built it

4. Maybe we can just muscle it through?

If the scale were smaller (let's say, developers on some widely used open source standard/code), this would have been a simple case of "oops, that's a bit shit, better get back in the lab and try to figure out a way to not trample other broadcasts, but keep the speed boosts we were proud of".

rupellohn• 11 years ago

Here is the actual study - it is an interesting read: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60001078145

In a nutshell; the LTE transmission cycles on and off on a regular cadence without sensing if the channel is clear. This tramples over the 802.11 frames and results in higher utilization of the medium than that which is claimed by Qualcomm

Someone12343• 11 years ago

Your link doesn't work by the way.

spydum• 11 years ago

works fine here?

sp3323• 11 years ago

It didn't work for me either. Maybe it times out? This works, at least for now: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?strip=1&q=cach...

jhallenworld• 11 years ago

Well the good news is that LTE-U appears to be for the 5 GHz band, not 2.4 GHz. You would think that it would be easier to put micro cells in the home gateways (using the bands they already own) vs. rolling out a new capabilities on the 5 GHz band in the client (I mean won't they have to wait for Apple/Android to switch to a new generation of chips?).

I guess the bad feeling is that the unlicensed bands would be used for a subscription service, whereas WiFi is controlled by the consumer (though in practice each ISP ends up using WiFi).

qb456• 11 years ago

Well the good news is that LTE-U appears to be for the 5 GHz band

I worry that it could make the 5G band look like 2.4G looks now. I too like the idea of a piece of spectrum used mainly by consumers or small businesses and not saturated by the big commercial gorillas. If today they are desperate enough to consider running their precious services on the wild unregulated bands then sooner or later they will be desperate enough to squeeze every last bit out of them.

Another thing is that once they are allowed in and their bottom line starts to depend on WiFi bands, they will fight to the death to stay there forever and only grow.

acqq• 11 years ago

My understanding is, just bad news: not only the LTE-U as it is now interferes with WiFi, it would also cause any phone connected to the WiFi to drain the battery faster, according to the papers.

It surely should not be allowed until it's significantly improved.

homulilly• 11 years ago

considering 2.4ghz is basically unusable where i live this isn't really good news.

InclinedPlane• 11 years ago

How is that good news?

mtgx• 11 years ago

The latest Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac, which has been shipping for the past 2 years, already works only in the 5GHz band. There has been a push for Wi-Fi to work in the 5GHz band ever since the 802.11n years with the "dual-band" routers, mainly because the 2.4GHz band was getting too crowded/routers were interfering with each other through walls too easily.

yuhong• 11 years ago

I think the worst thing are the 802.11 frame errors that results.

wscott• 11 years ago

Oh no, the unregulated spectrum is unregulated.

Not sure which side I am on. I don't like Verizon, but I don't really support heavy regulation.

justicezyx• 11 years ago

It's unregulated, or it is more means that it's publicly shared.

Truly unregulated just mean that everyone is entitled to screw everyone else, that's hardly anyone's intention.

profmonocle• 11 years ago

Unlicensed doesn't mean unregulated. The unlicensed spectrum is absolutely regulated. For instance, jamming unlicensed frequencies is illegal. Also, the unlicensed bands have power limits.

threeseed2• 11 years ago

It's unlicensed/unused spectrum. Not unregulated.

The FCC still maintains ultimate regulatory oversight. And if LTE-U does cause issues with WiFi then it seems like something that makes sense to be regulated appropriately.

logicallee• 11 years ago

Not sure which side I am on

I'll tell you! (It's clear to me what side you're on.) You do really support heavy regulation, and you don't think some guy with a cheap and crappy device in the vicinity should be able to disrupt your cell phone reception, FM radio, the GPS wherever you are trying to figure out your location, or, yes, wifi. Likewise you don't want to have to drive from California to Boston because it's too dangerous to get in an airplane with all the unregulated recreational drones in the airspace. You want the radio spectrum, class A airspace, vehicle and factory emissions, and a bunch of other stuff to be heavily regulated. (What these things have in common I'll leave as an exercise.)

EDIT: this is at -1 but it's true. I'm leaving it. I guarantee that the guy is for heavy regulation and doesn't want me disrupting his cell phone, GPS, or wifi due to crappy devices that do not even give me any benefit but just ignore regulation / or there isn't any. he enjoys the benefits and is for them. I guarantee it.

mikecb• 11 years ago

That comcast is part of this coalition is hilarious. My apartment building is flooded by xfinitywifi beacons, in addition to each subscribers private SSIDs. Why they insist on turning on this functionality even in urban environments boggles the mind.

gst7• 11 years ago

I would assume that the bandwidth used by those beacons is pretty small and negligible when compared to the total available bandwidth.

sithadmin• 11 years ago

It just adds to the 2.4gHz channel congestion hell. Pretty much everywhere I've lived in the past 3 years, 2.4gHz has been nearly unusable.

ploxiln2• 11 years ago

20 or so SSIDs beaconing adds up to a lot of airtime. Consider:

  * beacons are sent at a low "common" rate, perhaps 6mbps
  * beacons still include the preamble and the DIFS before that
  * 802.11n/ac get high bandwidth from aggregating multiple frames

So all those trivially small beacons take little bandwidth but a significant amount of airtime (which is a significant amount of potential bandwidth for faster clients with multiple frames to send in one aggregate)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_coordination_funct...

JustSomeNobody2• 11 years ago

I'm actually torn on this. I mean, I like that they are trying to push for wifi everywhere. But I kind of thing they should restrict it to certain businesses (Malls, pizza joints, etc) and not residential. I don't ever find myself without wifi at home unless the entire freaking neighborhood is out too (common with Comcast).

pconner3• 11 years ago

I thought that the xfinitywifi was just for Comcast subscribers. You can't call it "wifi everywhere" if it's only usable by certain people.

mjn• 11 years ago

I think their goal is to get coverage of commercial areas partly through nearby residential subscribers, since lots of them are in mixed-use areas. Even if the pizza joint doesn't have Comcast, the apartment upstairs (or across the street) might. So Comcast has a bigger chance of getting xfinitywifi coverage to places like the pizza joint if they turn on the functionality for residential routers too.

dogma11382• 11 years ago

Buy RF blocking window film if you are having so many issues. http://www.slt.co/Products/RFShieldingWindowFilm/RFWindowFil...

There's also a wallpaper (and even paint) version of this which isn't terrible expensive if you are living in an apartment building with exterior dry walls instead of concrete.

This is pretty much the "civilian" version of stuff government agencies use to RF proof undercover sites which could not be fitted with active jamming, it works extremely well.

I have one in the bedroom put it on because BT set up one of their metro wifi towers in line of sight of the window, it also blocks all the other wifi SSID's from outside.

herf• 11 years ago

Any way to tell if a particular window (say at a hotel) is using this film?

msh• 11 years ago

But would that not risk breaking your cellular signal?

MikeNomad• 11 years ago

Buy Spectrum. They ain't making any more of the stuff. -- Buck Rogers

acd• 11 years ago

Celluar companies has payed to the state to have monopoly on certain air frequencies for a number of years which brings in good profits. Now these celluar companies want to sell paid services on the non licensed bands which will make free services like Wifi slower.

Here is an analogy, its like a company wanting to sell paid access to a public beach.

fennecfoxen• 11 years ago

I'd say it's more like a street food vendor setting up a stall on a public sidewalk. Sometimes that's really convenient for both of you and it's exactly what you want, and sometimes the area is too congested so he's just in your way and it's super obnoxious. (And obviously it makes a big difference whether you're out in the suburbs or you're just off Times Square.)

__jal2• 11 years ago

And guess what? At least in NYC, there are rules about where and for how long those food vendors set up. (Not that all of them follow the rules, of course, but not having your permit is rather costly, I understand.)

"Let the market decide" doesn't work with commons. It's a tragedy, I tell you.

sg85• 11 years ago

This article explains a few points that explains how LTE-U can co-exist apparentely counteracting the research conclusions: http://hightechforum.org/can-lte-unlicensed-steamroll-wi-fi/

happycube• 11 years ago

One would think Verizon had enough spectrum already. Sprint, sure, but Verizon?

at-fates-hands• 11 years ago

This was my thought as well. One of the big things all the carriers promote is the speeds of their networks which is directly related to spectrum licenses which is directly related to the amount of capacity these networks have.

Verizon has huge chucks of spectrum licenses already to work with: (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verizon_Wireless#Radio_frequen...)

tshtf• 11 years ago

Are you aware that Sprint has 40 MHz of spectrum in 90 of the top 100 markets? That's far more than any other provider.

It's entirely Sprint's fault for not building up a reliable network (of course it's in the 2.5 GHz band) on what the FCC has given them.

Edit: Maps of the relative amount of spectrum for U.S. LTE providers is here (Sprint leads the way):

http://www.fiercewireless.com/special-reports/2015-how-much-...

guelo• 11 years ago

I don't understand how LTE-U is useful for long-range when the unlicensed spectrums have strict TX power limits.

sp3323• 11 years ago

It's not about long range. It's about getting more usable spectrum in crowded areas, or areas where the carrier failed to win a bid for sufficient licensed spectrum.

sliverstorm2• 11 years ago

This tastes a little like "pull the ladder up behind you". WiFi operates on unlicensed spectrum, and Google et al greatly benefit from it. Now someone else wants to use the spectrum, and they shouldn't be allowed to? It's just funny to me.

sp3323• 11 years ago

The FCC prevents devices that knowingly cause interference. I think this is an argument that the tech should be banned because they can prove ahead of time that it will interfere with other devices.

ck22• 11 years ago

Do not trust Verizon in the slightest.

They already violate their open/unlocked agreement for LTE and prevent other LTE devices from coming on their network and prevent theirs from going on other networks.

They are going to do whatever they can get away with.

mahyarm• 11 years ago

So if I buy an unlocked LTE device from somewhere, I cannot use it on verizon?

ck22• 11 years ago

Nope. 99% of them won't be allowed.

* with extreme exceptions there are some just so they can claim they meet federal guidelines

Now you might be able to trick activate an LTE sim for verizon on a verizon phone and then get it to work on your phone but technically verizon doesn't allow it

One day there is going to be a really large lawsuit about this, specifically because it violates the spirit of LTE licensing if not the actual letter of the law.

What the do to prevent their phones being taken to other carriers is even more devious. To get around LTE portability requirements, they simply disable specific LTE bands like the ones for T-Mobile, etc. So yeah you can put a T-Mobile sim in there but the phone won't get any signal.

SwellJoe• 11 years ago

I just assume evil intentions whenever one of the major carriers is involved in a dispute. I don't know what's in their hearts and minds in situations like this, but I know their history, and to trust an entity that has been abusive to consumers for decades to have good intentions would be silly.

I don't necessarily think Google or (gods forbid) Comcast are above criticism, but in this case Verizon is wanting to sell the commons back to us. This is akin to Nestle saying water is not a human right, for a digital society.

mirimir6• 11 years ago

If your WiFi were getting stomped by LTE-U, would it help to get a high-power AP from Ubiquiti etc? If so, maybe prices of such APs would drop as volume increased. Also, maybe WiFi AP software could be tweaked to compete better with LTE-U.

kevingadd• 11 years ago

Yeah, but now you and your neighbors have trouble using your phones because of the AP. It's a bad trade.

mirimir6• 11 years ago

OK, but maybe AP software could be tweaked to play nice with phones. Or maybe phones will stay away from WiFi bands.

oasisbob• 11 years ago

Higher powered APs don't help transmissions from the client which face the same interference.

mirimir6• 11 years ago

Doh. Thanks.

So software tweaks, then. Yes?

kllrnohj• 11 years ago

No, because wifi is a nice protocol. It waits for the channel to be clear before transmitting. It's not a matter of transmit power, it's a matter of collision & airtime.

zw123456• 11 years ago

Here is the link to the Qualcomm docs (LTE forum). http://www.lteuforum.org/documents.html The interesting one I think is the SDL coexistence one. The good news is it is restricted to the 5Ghz band which is the lesser used. It does interoperate with the DCF backoff so in theory would be no worse than any other AP, but it is understandable why it would make people nervous.

ape4• 11 years ago

Why do we have to keep saving the internet!

adventured• 11 years ago

Because the Internet was the first - and so far only - global free or mostly free market that has ever existed. It came of age at a time in which every major economy is highly regulated, rigid and bureaucratic. By design it came into this world with: free speech and expression, the ability to create and start things at will without permission (no little bureaucrat to get approval from first), and had little to no taxation placed on top of it for a long time (even if eg in the US those sales taxes were supposed to be paid anyway). The powers that be have had to work for two decades to try to cripple it to strip that very high degree of freedom away and acquire the control they want over it (whether for data espionage purposes, or control of commerce, or control of speech for social purposes, or taxation et al). Most governments were caught entirely off-guard with the speed at which the Web emerged.

Any time large bureaucracies run into a free market, they inevitably try to kill or regulate it (whether for the benefit of entrenched companies, or for state control purposes, or out of misguided nanny-state protectionism). There are few nations across the globe that haven't followed the same increasing regulation / control path with regards to the Internet, to one degree or another.

saintgimp• 11 years ago

Um - in this case we're saving the internet (well, really radio spectrum that people use to access the internet) from private corporations, not the government. A totally free market sucks because there will never be a properly-maintained commons. If it weren't for the government, maybe I'd bolt my router to a 10-kilowatt transmitter so I can get my home wifi signal while I'm grocery shopping. So what if it sucks for everyone else! The government quite rightly regulates me in that area and says I can't do that.

If the internet as we know it today ever dies, I'm 80% sure it will be due to private corporations screwing everyone to make an extra buck, not due to government over-regulation.

pmontra• 11 years ago

If LTE-U degrades WiFi won't it work in the other way too, WiFi degrading LTE-U? If this is the case it's going to be difficult to use LTE-U inside or close to homes, which are probably the most crowded areas and so the use case of LTE-U. It could be a difficult product to sell.

JoshTriplett3• 11 years ago

Depends on wifi's reaction to what amounts to noise. Given a polite protocol that checks before sending, and a protocol that rudely blasts out a signal without checking, the latter will "win".

qb456• 11 years ago

LTE-U surely won't be at a disadvantage to WiFi because it's designed with WiFi in mind.

Congestion-wise it will probably look like yet another WiFi AP, or zillion of them if it gets deployed sufficiently widely.

jostmey• 11 years ago

So if Wi-Fi performance is hampered then we might have to rely more on cellular data.

revelation2• 11 years ago

That can not happen.

Cellular data is not another dumb pipe, it's data transmission grafted with duct tape onto GSM et al., which are ridiculously centralized and proprietary services. There are no open source implementations, no open source hardware, certainly no open source drivers. Even if there were, you would be at the mercy of whoever operates the base station.

datenwolf• 11 years ago

http://osmocom.org/

feld• 11 years ago

Why does Verizon want LTE-U so badly? They were against wifi calling until recently! I thought their network was perfect :)

The only thing I can think of is that they don't have enough high-frequency spectrum (1700/1800/2ghz+) which means lower theoretical data speeds.

stevefeinstein• 11 years ago

What does LTE-U do that you can't already do with wifi, and WiFi calling? Seems like a solution looking for a problem. Or an evil conspiracy to cripple the open, free, firmly established standard.

djrogers2• 11 years ago

What does LTE-U do that you can't already do with wifi, and WiFi calling?

It gives the telcos a way to measure and control your access to their network and services so they can bill you for it. Wifi calling offloads everything but the actual phone call to a 3rd party (i.e. not Verizon) so Verizon can't keep their fingers in the pie.

dheera2• 11 years ago

Considering 5 GHz doesn't really travel well through walls, is this a serious concern? 5 GHz Wi-Fi typically requires an access point in every room. Conversely, I imagine their cellular tech would really only improve the outdoor cellular experience.

0_00_0• 11 years ago

Do you live in a concrete bunker? I have one dual band AP for my entire house.

dheera2• 11 years ago

I live in a huge concrete building, yes ...

a-dub2• 11 years ago

I think unlicensed spectrum should be reserved for use by the public.

djrogers2• 11 years ago

For the public - interesting stance there. Your home Wifi connects to a private network, and presumably an ISP - what makes that dramatically different from this with respect to 'public' use?

A 'public' wifi hotspot is either run by, or connects to, an ISP. What's the difference there?

LTE-U will be used by the 'public' to access an ISP (that happens to be a cell phone company). By your standard, would all of the above be disallowed as they run through a company network to get to the Internet, or would they all be allowed as they are being used by the 'public'?

a-dub2• 11 years ago

Maybe that was a little unclear. If you're an individual and you don't buy bands from the government, unlicensed spectrum is for you. If you're a utility who does buy bands from the government, then spilling over into unlicensed spectrum to boost your capability seems kinda bullshit to me.

Sure, it gets quite complicated when you start talking about customer operated equipment that provides commercial service (xfinity is a good example) but perhaps the critical test would be "is the transmitting equipment fully managed and controlled by the individual?"

goodmachine• 11 years ago

Speculating gently that this 'new' tech is intended to enable the signalling layer for LTE Direct (was FlashLinq) a quasi-P2P system, designed primarily for retailers to push stuff at you, rather than create 'classic' P2P filesharing networks. Perhaps someone more knowledgeable than me on this topic can join the dots...

http://www.pcworld.com/article/259680/emerging_lte_direct_st...

https://www.qualcomm.com/media/documents/files/lte-direct-wh...

neuromancer2701• 11 years ago

Take the 600Mhz band that is going to be up for auction and make it unlicensed explicitly for LTE.

jlappi• 11 years ago

I believe some over the air TV still goes over the 600Mhz band.

benlower• 11 years ago

Verizon has paid many billions of dollars to license spectrum over the years. It is in their business interest to charge customers $10 per GB of data while offloading the traffic onto free spectrum. Qualcomm wants to sell millions of new chips that will be required to power this new scenario.

It would be extremely unwise to let them push LTE-U thru without lots of independent testing and analysis. Even then there is a case to be made for keeping some spectrum 'open' and unlicensed lest we see it all end up owned by a handful of corporations.

qb456• 11 years ago

Even then there is a case to be made for keeping some spectrum 'open' and unlicensed lest we see it all end up owned by a handful of corporations.

I think this is the important point. Let cell carriers in and they will subscribe as many people as necessary to fill the available bandwidth. After all, that's pretty much what they are paid for.

It's like road congestion - the amount of suffering depends on people's tolerance to endure suffering, not on the amount of available resource. There will always be more people willing to watch lolcat videos on their phones if they don't stutter too badly.

Keeping some spectrum aside from big operators allows at least small LANs to operate reasonably, while opening it to them may easily end up bringing suffering to everyone.

thecosas• 11 years ago

Wow, Qualcomm is getting desperate to have the next thing everyone will rely on.

tyc20213• 11 years ago

I have been following this technology since FCC first call for response. Here is the other side of the story: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60001104452

EDIT: For all I know, the result used by Google is mostly simulation based (NOT TRUE).

Qualcomm did their due diligence on simulations AND lab trials to show different results. IMHO, Qualcomm clearly has a better arguments.

Note that the link provided in the top comment by rupellohn is old. The latest one, referred in the news link, is probably (there are multiple filings) this one: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60001331188

Full list of recent filing here: http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/proceeding/view;ECFSSESSION=Xp4PVvB...

TL;DR: 1. LTE-U has been proven to be a better neighbor to a WF AP than another WiFi AP. In other words, two WiFi APs in the same room perform worse than One WiFi AP and One LTE-U station.

2. Fairness: 2 WiFi APs should each share each have 5% airtime according to the standard, right? Wrong. Lab trials show one AP could take up to 80% +. Refer to http://apps.fcc.gov/ecfs/document/view?id=60001104452 "Wi-Fi/LTE-U Airtime Fairness". LTE-U always gives 50% Air time to its WiFi neighbor.

3. It is more of a political argument than a technological argument now. Note that at this point LTE-U spec does not violate the regulation on unlicensed spectrum.

DISCLAIMER: I don't work for Qualcomm. But it is easy to see who has a better argument.

magicalist• 11 years ago

For all I know, the result used by Google is mostly simulation based, whereas Qualcomm did their due diligence on simulations AND lab trials.

I find it ironic that you've been "following this technology", have quick access to Qualcomm filing links, are happy to fill in details, but couldn't be bothered to even skim Google's filing.

The Jindal and Breslin study is well written and understandable. I'd suggest reading it since you seem invested in the topic.

tyc20213• 11 years ago

I stand corrected.

I confused the filing by Google with other WiFi supporters (which uses simulation results). I have read through the all the filing months ago and apology for the bad memory. I agree that Jindal and Breslin study is solid and raised a valid concern. But they were all addressed in a response though.

Now I'd love to know how others think after reading Qualcomm's filing and not just take on one side of the story.

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