LTE-U

[sakita]

Anybody out there getting nervous about LTE-U (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTE_in_un ... d_spectrum)?

I've read several articles about it and all the authors keep going on about is the potential interference between LTE-U and home WiFi... not seeing much in the way of comprehension of the potential for interference with WISPs (and other spectrum users, such as myself, that leverage the same technology).

Also, at least one major corporate WiFi vendor is now coming out as excited about this wonderful new thing and how the FCC is really moving toward lite-licensing in the 3.5GHz (yet another reason they say it won't be a big deal - i.e. it won't be in 5.8... it will all naturally move to 3.5). The vendor in question sounds like they're looking to push LTE-U to corporate users as a future WiFi replacement offering: why use WiFi when it can all be LTE - as if the base technology is what'll make the magic (think about the behind-the-scenes things that make cellular networks work - that stuff doesn't happen at layer 1).

[rebelwireless]

I'm not so sure how 5Ghz will work out for LTE. It would be a bit strange for cell vendors to move into a saturated band that they can't control... LTE has no magic that will erase the millions of 5Ghz wifi routers that are out there, and wifi will cause severe interference with LTE.

[sirhc]

I am wondering if they will use this technology more for those little micro pops that they place inside buildings such as sports arenas and convention centers.

But to answer your question sakita, "YES" I am very concerned.

We are actually working with a large cell carrier right now to supply our switches to power these micro cells so maybe I can garnish some information on their plans.

[mike99]

I don't think carrier will use public band else for small coverage Wi-Fi but it give us access to carrier technologies without needing to buy frenquency right. Telrad was the product of the year at WIZPALOOZA for the breeze series available on public frequency.

[rebelwireless]

Telrad's LTE product is a data product, *not* what cell carriers sell. It's much more a cambium or airmax competitor that just happens to use LTE instead of 802.11...

[sakita]

...and as it states in the data for the BreezeCOMPACT 1000 it is LTE and "16e" which I take to mean that it can be compatible with WiMax 802.16e (but they wouldn't necessarily want to spell that out completely logically to focus on the LTE aspect of the product. That said, it is interesting I didn't see anything on their site calling out what speeds this product can achieve in the real world. Basically, they are using an SDR to run LTE (or 802.16e WiMax). Naturally anyone can lookup what LTE is capable of by specification but what I'd like to see is a realistic data table specific to this product (e.g. like Ubiquiti includes in their products) - maybe I just missed it and it exists? It is not on the happy glossy cut-sheet at least.

Long-term where it could get interesting is if consumer products (phones, tablets, laptops) and other devices (sensors, etc.) get LTE capabilities in the same bands currently using WiFi-based technology. That combined with the back-end hand-off capabilities and seamless roaming achieving more off-load which is what the carriers are looking for. The scary part is just how much this could saturate the unlicensed bands (especially when there are a number of users that clearly only conceptualize more as better and set their transmit power accordingly - who hasn't seen that before with typical WiFi AP deployments: way more power than they need which results with the customer questions / gripes about getting 3 or 4 bars and still having lousy WiFi connectivity).

In any case, the way I see it, LTE is winning the war in the cellular arena (i.e. the product that will continue to be developed) although it is not the most spectrally efficient (it is good but not the most efficient). It will also be interesting to see how well it actually does when it has to live in a noisy environment. There is a huge difference between clean licensed channels where the only interference should be self-generated and dealing with the ever-increasing number of users in unlicensed bands.

The end-device connectivity wireless layer will be interesting to watch over the next few years...

[mike99]

Telrad's LTE product is a data product, *not* what cell carriers sell. It's much more a cambium or airmax competitor that just happens to use LTE instead of 802.11...

I don't think WISP care about voice else over data since evereything is now mostly over IP including voice and video. Anyway, even with the carrier FTTx device I try, SIP is foreground while H.248 is documented as the legacy option.

If it's follow LTE standard, it's could be a huge difference just like I see a huge difference between Cambium, even with ePMP series, and airmax since Cambium have hardware TDD while airmax is a software polling hacked a customer router driver.
Anyway, maybe Airmax is or will better on AC series with dedicated chip just like on ePMP if it's not just some kind of ASIC for the actual airmax algorithm.