Now, a new technology championed by Qualcomm, Verizon, Samsung and others aims to move into Wi-Fi’s unlicensed frequency neighborhood to deliver mobile data faster, more reliably and with better security.
That has sparked a skirmish between Qualcomm and other supporters of what’s known as LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U), and groups with big bets on Wi-Fi, including Google, Broadcom, cable providers and some public interest groups.
Wi-Fi advocates fear LTE-U won’t play nice with rival technologies in unlicensed spectrum frequencies, crowding them out and slowing down Web browsing for Wi-Fi users.
Qualcomm expects to make the technology available in some of its mobile chips late this year. Verizon and T-Mobile are preparing to roll out the technology in their networks next year.
The controversy is technical. But it highlights the shifting landscape in the wireless industry.
Wi-Fi is being used to offload wireless data traffic from crowded cellular networks. But as Wi-Fi use has surged, the technology has gone from providing online access at a coffee shop to being akin to a substitute cellular network, says industry research firm CCS Insight.
Consumers tap Wi-Fi to avoid exceeding data caps on their cellular plans. A consortium of cable companies has cobbled together thousands of Wi-Fi hotspots nationwide so subscribers can stream video or surf the Web on the go. For these cable firms, including Cox Communications and Time Warner Cable, Wi-Fi gives them a wireless offering to better compete with bundled service plans from AT&T and Verizon.
LTE-U is rooted in the licensed cellular network. Wireless operators pay billions for spectrum — airwave frequencies that carry information — in federal auctions. They build proprietary cellular networks based on that spectrum, with 4G LTE being the latest version. Consumers subscribe to get reliable, widespread wireless voice and data.
The Federal Communications Commission also sets aside blocks of so-called unlicensed spectrum that anyone can use. The idea is to foster wireless innovation. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, baby monitors and garage door openers are among the wireless technologies operating in unlicensed spectrum.
How LTE-U works is essentially hopping from licensed spectrum to unlicensed spectrum when a channel is available. Because LTE radios are more sophisticated, they can deliver more data over unlicensed airwaves.
“Fundamentally, LTE-U is much more efficient than Wi-Fi,” said Patrick Welsh, executive director of federal regulatory affairs at Verizon. “What that means is for the same amount of spectrum, you can double the throughput. That is a big deal.”
LTE-U proponents see the technology as complementary to Wi-Fi, initially targeting customers who want better hotspot performance and security, such as corporate offices.
Verizon doesn’t know yet how it will monetize the technology. But Welsh said consumers will be able to activate Wi-Fi on devices — just like today. “Wi-Fi isn’t going away,” he said.
Wi-Fi hotspots and routers helped deliver more than half of all Internet traffic in North America last year, according to Cisco’s Virtual Networking Index. Active Wi-Fi hotspots in the U.S. are forecast to surge from nearly 10 million last year to about 75 million by 2018.
Because Wi-Fi operates in open, unlicensed frequencies, sharing spectrum is baked into its DNA, supporters say.
LTE, with its roots in proprietary cellular networks, wasn’t envisioned to share with anything but itself.
LTE-U relies on a duty cycle approach — essentially periodic transmission breaks — to make room for others operating on unlicensed airwaves. For the Wi-Fi industry, that method is suspect. They claim it falls short of the listen-before-talk protocol used by Wi-Fi.
Armed with studies suggesting LTE-U will cause interference, Wi-Fi advocates have urged the Federal Communications Commission to step in.
“From the Wi-Fi perspective, this is some kind of invasive species, like kudzu coming into your yard,” said Harold Feld, executive vice president of Public Knowledge, a nonprofit group that supports FCC oversight.
“If you are Wi-Fi dependent, which is every consumer with a hotspot, you need to worry that we are working without a safety net here,” he said. “It’s a bunch of self-interested companies saying trust me.”
The FCC typically avoids industry spats involving lightly regulated unlicensed spectrum, preferring that the parties work out their differences themselves.
“It is undisputed that (LTE-U) complies completely with FCC rules,” said Dean Brenner, senior vice president of government affairs at Qualcomm. “Unlicensed spectrum is open and available for deployment of any technology. There are a minimal set of rules and we comply with those rules.”
Supporters of LTE-U say they’ve engineered the technology to be polite to Wi-Fi and the other users of unlicensed frequencies.
“I think some of the early concerns came out of the notion that we took LTE (into unlicensed spectrum) without changing it,” said Qualcomm’s Chief Technology Officer Matt Grob in an interview this spring. “We made modifications. It has the capabilities to back down and co-exist.”
LTE-U advocates say field trials and third-party studies show the technology is often a better neighbor to Wi-Fi hotspots than other Wi-Fi hotspots nearby.
“We test two Wi-Fi access points, and we find one being greedy and hogging the spectrum,” said Brenner. “We rarely find that they share spectrum fairly.”
He added that Qualcomm generates significant revenue selling Wi-Fi chips and technology, so it wouldn’t unleash a technology that potentially harms that business.
“We have our own gigantic investment in Wi-Fi,” he said. “The last thing that Qualcomm would ever want to do is anything that jeopardizes Wi-Fi.”
New technologies are often vetted through standards bodies — groups of engineers or experts — to set procedures for compatibility.
Wi-Fi and LTE are governed by different standards organizations. Verizon and Qualcomm have a green light from the LTE standards group for deployment of LTE-U in the U.S., China and Korea.
Wi-Fi advocates want the FCC to pressure LTE-U supporters to work with the Wi-Fi standards-setting agency to address interference concerns.
The FCC agreed to take written comments on LTE-U earlier this year — the most minimal action it could take. The comment period ended this month. The move aims to get concerns on the table as a foundation for both sides to negotiate.
For now, there is a stalemate. But Qualcomm and other LTE-U advocates say they will keep talkingwith those worried about the technology.
“We are going to continue to interact with everyone, deal with the concerns, continue to refine the technology,” said Brenner of Qualcomm. “Then we will do what we do best — push it out at scale as broadly and quickly as possible.”
©2015 The San Diego Union-Tribune Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
