http://www.infoworld.com/article/2976474/wireless-local-area-network/carriers-want-your-wifi-lte-u.html?phint=newt%3Dinfoworld_daily&phint=idg_eid%3D593b93817ad0a9726f889c7044a6e9d3#tk.IFWNLE_nlt_daily_am_2015-08-27
Carriers want to take your Wi-Fi for their own use
Politics, it’s often said, makes strange bedfellows. It turns out that spectrum
does too. An unusual coalition that includes Comcast and other cable companies,
consumer advocacy groups, and Google is facing off against T-Mobile and other
cellular carriers.
At stake, the combatants say, is the future of Wi-Fi. An effort by the carriers
to use unregulated portions of the spectrum to offload cellular traffic that’s
clogging their networks could interfere with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and devices
connected to the Internet of things, say the consumer groups and their allies
in the cable industry. The carriers, they charge, would rather sell their
cellular data, so putting the squeeze on free Wi-Fi is in their economic
interest.
Nonsense, respond the carriers. “Wi-Fi is central to our customer experience,
so co-existence is core to our desire to protect our customers’ Wi-Fi
experience,” a T-Mobile exec tells me. (He asks that I not use his name.) One
reason: T-Mobile’s network handles approximately 11 million Wi-Fi calls a day,
he adds, so it needs Wi-Fi networks to be reliable.
Although the issue is pretty technical, involving technologies most people
haven’t heard of, there’s already been some overheated coverage, such as in
this Network World article: "LTE-U is coming to take your Wi-Fi away, consumer
advocates warn." Even worse, lobbyists on the cable side have gotten the
techno-simpletons in the U.S. Senate involved and are trying to get the FCC to
step in.
I suspect the issue will be resolved by engineers on both side without serious
damage to anyone. It does, though, highlight the increasing convergence of
broadband, cable, satellite, and wireless business interests.
What's behind the LTE-U dispute
To address poor in-home cellular coverage, T-Mobile several years ago pioneered
using the Wi-Fi network you're currently signed into to offload phone calls, a
capability now used by all the major U.S. carriers on compatible smartphones
such as the Apple iPhone 6 and Samsung Galaxy S6.
But offloading calls is different than what the carriers want to do with the
unlicensed (that is, freely available) Wi-Fi and Bluetooth spectrum that has
the cable companies and their allies so upset.
Modern smartphones use 4G LTE radio technology, and LTE runs on spectrum
licensed by the FCC. That spectrum is filling up. Buying more spectrum is very
expensive when it's even available.
That's why the carriers -- led by T-Mobile -- now want to use a version of the
LTE cellular radio technology called LTE-U (the "U" stands for "unlicensed")
that moves data and voice traffic normally carried in licensed parts of the
spectrum reserved for cellular devices into the unlicensed frequencies that
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth devices use.
There’s lot of room in the unlicensed bands, but it isn’t limitless. Your Wi-Fi
network router wouldn't see the LTE-U device on the network; all your Wi-Fi
network router might notice is that there's suddenly less spectrum available
for it to use. “There’s real potential for interference,” says Chris Lewis,
vice president for government affairs of consumer advocacy group Public
Knowledge.
It’s no secret that the exponential growth of wireless traffic has put all of
the carriers in a bind. Nor is it a secret that T-Mobile’s cellular network is
weak outside of major metro areas, although the carrier disputes that claim. It
makes sense that the “uncarrier” has been leading the charge to implement LTE-U.
Poor cellular coverage and saturated cellular towers are why the carriers
encourage customers to connect via Wi-Fi whenever possible. Because Wi-Fi usage
doesn’t count against a user’s data bucket, customers come out ahead. That’s
why consumer advocates are so sensitive to anything that could make Wi-Fi
harder to use.
Lewis notes that high-bandwidth uses of Wi-Fi, particularly video and VoIP, are
the most susceptible to latency caused by interference. If video or voice calls
get choppy, users would likely jump onto LTE, which they have to pay for. “The
carriers have some incentive to push them there,” he says.
Such fears pushed four consumer advocacy groups -- Public Knowledge, Free
Press, Common Cause, and the Open Technology Institute -- to lobby the FCC to
prohibit or restrict the use of LTE-U. “Carriers also have powerful incentives
to use LTE-U to deter mobile market entry by ‘Wi-Fi First’ providers, such as
[traditional Internet service providers: the cable companies and landline phone
companies]. Carriers deploying LTE-U will have the apparent option to adjust
their access points to introduce just enough latency to frustrate consumer use
of real-time applications, such as video calling,” they wrote in a filing to
the FCC.
Tech companies concur with the consumer advocates. The FCC filing cites studies
by Google, Broadcom, and others that claim that LTE-U can severely degrade
Wi-Fi throughput, speeds, and latency (time delay) of packet delivery for
real-time applications such as VoIP.
T-Mobile says the tests are flawed: “Claims by LTE-U opponents, particularly
cable companies, that the technology will adversely impact Wi-Fi operations are
based on testing with parameters set at extremes that do not represent
realistic deployments or do not reflect actual LTE-U specifications,” Steve
Sharkey, the carrier’s director of engineering, told the FCC.
If you’re wondering why Comcast and other cable operators care about this, the
answer is simple: broadband and wireless increasingly go together. Comcast has
more broadband customers than pay-TV customers, and anyone with a cable modem
can (and usually does) use it with a Wi-Fi router.
Time Warner Cable is touting its Wi-Fi hotspots, and Cablevision is now in the
wireless phone business with a Wi-Fi-only calling service dubbed Freewheel.
Google, of course, has become an Internet service provide with its Google Fi
high-speed fiber offerings.
Despite the saber-rattling, there's no need to panic
Notwithstanding the rhetoric and the different conclusions they've reached, I’d
be surprised if the LTE-U issue doesn’t get resolved.
Although he’s wary, Public Knowledge's Lewis says, “We don’t oppose LTE-U; we
just want it to work.” The T-Mobile exec I spoke to at some length was very
careful not to sound hostile or overly combative toward the concerns of the
consumer advocacy groups.
Furthermore, T-Mobile argues that its version of LTE-U will include technology
called Listen Before Talk (LBT) that acts like a traffic cop. LBT makes the
network aware of traffic, and it is designed to keep Wi-Fi and LTE-U signals
separate to avoid interference. User traffic would be handed from Wi-Fi to
LTE-U in a (hopefully) seamless procedure.
T-Mobile also maintains that although Wi-Fi is common in many cities' public
areas, it is hardly ubiquitous, particularly in rural and suburban areas.
T-Mobile envisions a user traveling in areas where there is no Wi-Fi and
connecting to the Internet using LTE-U. If there’s no Wi-Fi, there’s no
interference, the company argues.
Getting the free use of spectrum outside its core areas would be a big win for
T-Mobile, which has been stung by claims that its coverage is still too limited
to compete with offerings from Verizon and AT&T.
However this dispute turns out, we will see more and more confrontations and a
reshuffling of the industry deck as the walls between once-separate
technologies and business models crumble. Ultimately, all these companies are
in the business of transmitting data, and it matters less and less where that
data originates, over what spectrum it rides, or what information it contains.
