A group of U.S. Senators has expressed concern that the rollout of LTE-U will interfere with Wi-Fi. LTE-U is a technology proposed by Qualcomm to employ carrier aggregation (CA) to make use of the unlicensed 5-GHz band to augment the data-carrying capacity of a licensed (400-MHz to 3.8-GHZ) LTE anchor channel.
Senators Brian Schatz (D-HI), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), Tom Udall (D-NM), Ed Markey (D-MA), Maria Cantwell (D-WA), and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) sent a letter to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler calling for more oversight on the potential interference LTE-U could have on Wi-Fi, especially given the proliferation of IoT devices.
They write, “Today, nearly half of all Internet traffic worldwide travels over Wi-Fi connections and Wi-Fi use is expected to continue to grow over the coming years. And the proliferation of Internet of Things technologies that rely on unlicensed spectrum will further increase unlicensed spectrum utilization.
“Several factors have made unlicensed spectrum an incredibly beneficial resource to consumers and businesses. For instance, one of the important attributes of unlicensed spectrum in the U.S. has been that it is a regulated with a very light touch. This very open environment has enabled innovation; however, it has also required cooperation among competing technologies and serious work by industry led standards groups to minimize harmful interference. And, as unlicensed spectrum usage increases, the need for all stakeholders to proactively work together to address interference issues will only grow.
“At this juncture, stakeholders have indicated that there is an absence of consensus as to the likely real-world effect on millions of Wi-Fi devices by carrier-scale deployment of these LTE technologies.”
Qualcomm has said that LTE-U is a good neighbor for Wi-Fi, supporting relevant standards with coexistence features, adding it will go through rigorous conformance testing before commercial rollout.
The Senators call for a constructive dialog among technical experts in an open and neutral forum. You can read the complete letter here.
