[opendtv] Re: Will Femtocells Save LTE?
- From: "Manfredi, Albert E" <albert.e.manfredi@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:27:22 -0500
Craig Birkmaier wrote:
>> This is exactly why I have never bought into the Genachowski FCC alarmism
>> about spectrum, and their single-minded resolve to grab everyone else's
>> spectrum for mobile wireless. That approach simply has no future. It
>> doesn't scale.
> Sorry Bert, but many of the benefits of off-loading traffic from the
> wireless telco networks have already been realized. Femtpcells are
> certainly part of the long term solution, but they are not going to
> resolve the need for more spectrum for mobile connectivity.
Sorry, Craig, but you misunderstand the problem.
It may even be true that femtocells are most useful indoors, because it is
probably true that indoors is where most people are busiest with their
smartphones. But the idea of femtocells is simply to create, in a *compatible*
with regular-sized outdoor cells, a much more dense set of cells. You are
simply reducing the RF link length, in order to greatly increase spectrum reuse.
This is not WiFi!
Remember when radio telephones depended on perhaps one operator in every city?
Well, cellular telephony got away from that, allowing the spectrum to be reused
over and over again, within that city. And femtocells take it another step
further.
Did you pay attention to their mention of cell antennas on light poles, for
example?
> When I am at home and work (or in the hotel where I am currently staying)
> my cellphone ALREADY uses WiFi for data.
That's not femtocells. That's perhaps picocells. Femtocells are standard 3G or
4G cells, only a lot smaller in area of coverage.
> Before you chime in that you can create networks of femtocells, remember,
> they use spectrum too.
Just like regular cells, they use exactly the same spectrum assigned to that
service provider. They simple REUSE the spectrum more effectively.
This does a whole lot more for personal wireless comms than adding maybe four
20 MHz slices, by grabbing all that TV spectrum. But, as I said, it doesn't
have the same dramatic feel. Still, it is the FCC's job to understand these
tradeoffs. Their advisory council figured it out. Will the FCC listen? Or will
they charge along, come hell or high water?
Bert
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