Wi-Fi, LTE-U Advocates Spar on Ongoing Exam of Peaceful Coexistence

“Deadlines for reviewing and finalizing the plan have not been met and, as a result, the introduction of a new technology that will benefit consumers continues to be delayed,” T-Mobile said. Last week, the WFA held a workshop in San Jose, California, where it indicated a final test plan, previously expected in August, is now more likely in September, said officials on both sides.

“Qualcomm is disappointed with the continued delays in finalizing a LTE-U/Wi-Fi test plan with the Wi-Fi Alliance, as well as with the substance presented by the WFA staff at last week’s WFA workshop, which lacked technical merit and was a sharp departure from Wi-Fi Alliance staff past presentations and views and from the view of any other standards body or regulator around the world,” emailed Senior Vice President-Government Affairs Dean Brenner. In May, Qualcomm sent LTE-U prototype equipment to the WFA lab, “and we successfully validated the current version of the test plan for LTE-U for all the tests that were run,” Brenner said. “This whole process has gone on for more than a year, and no new technology for unlicensed spectrum, which is supposed to be available for permission-less innovation, has gone through vetting this long or this extensive.”

LTE-U advocates disagreed in interviews about whether the FCC needs to step in to mandate a test process apart from WFA. “This whole thing started because the FCC put in place a process outside the rules,” said an executive at a company eager to see LTE-U products certified. Under FCC rules, the agency already should be certifying any device that meets the Part 15 technical requirements, the executive said. The FCC has been urging the WFA to act, but the process is moving too slowly, the executive said. But an executive at another company eager to see release of LTE-U devices said the problem isn't at the FCC but within the WFA.

Ericsson plans to roll out an LTE-U product in the second half of this year, said Vice President-Government Affairs, North America Jared Carlson. Ericsson’s recently released mobility report for North America found that the region will have the highest data use rate in the world. “We think the LTE-U will actually play a role in supporting that kind of capacity that people are going to be using,” Carlson said. "To support rising data demand, we need everything we can get and LTE-U is actually a way of delivering a better quality of experience to end users.”

Ericsson filed at the FCC a request for approval of a small cell that includes LTE-U in May 2015, Carlson said. “It’s been more than a year and it still hasn’t been granted.” Ericsson is trialing LTE-U in many other countries despite delays in the U.S., he said. “We’re not happy with the process” in this country, he said. “It continues to be delayed. We first thought that there would be a test plan in January and that slipped to April. … It makes it hard to introduce new products into the market.” The FCC has been helpful on the whole, Carlson said. “We think that they get it,” he said of the agency. At some point, the FCC may need to be more “forceful to get the ball rolling,” he said.

Next Steps

Wi-Fi advocates said the process is moving as quickly as possible. “Wi-Fi Alliance is committed to delivering an industry-validated Coexistence Test Plan that ensures fair coexistence as quickly as possible,” a spokesman emailed: “Through close collaboration with those in the Wi-Fi and LTE-U communities, we have made significant progress and have consistently hit communicated milestones. It is important to understand that Wi-Fi Alliance is leading a multi-industry effort, which has never before been attempted.”

Finding a path to coexistence between LTE-U and Wi-Fi “is no easy feat,” the spokesman said. Many technical challenges remain and the work takes time, WFA said. “Even with the contributions of many stakeholder companies, the magnitude of the validation effort is expected to push the release of the final test plan into September. Wi-Fi Alliance understands the commercial interests of the LTE-U community and is exploring every possible option to accelerate the work while still ensuring the test objectives are met.

"WifiForward will continue to collaborate with all stakeholders to produce an effective LTE-U coexistence protocol that best serves the needs of the estimated 250 million U.S. Wi-Fi users,” said a spokesman. “T-Mobile and Qualcomm are the very companies that asked for the unusual arrangement of developing an LTE-U protocol outside of the standards bodies that have long worked on other major wireless technologies. It's surprising that now that these companies have gotten their wish, they are opposing their own process before even waiting to see the outcome and evaluate it based on the merits.” A one-month delay “doesn’t change the fact that the Wi-Fi Alliance coexistence effort is significantly more streamlined than other comparable standards processes,” WifiForward said. “The best way forward is for companies to continue to actively participate in the Wi-Fi Alliance process through completion before jumping to conclusions."