As much as I like the idea of a bunch of scheming Qualcomm executives sitting around a giant conference table plotting to ply journalists with breakfast and lunch, maybe it's possible they were just being polite hosts?

There is also at least one study[1] showing that people who have recently eaten have a more positive impression of others.

[1] Mentioned last night on the show "The Brain" on PBS, which I highly recommend.

http://www.pbs.org/the-brain-with-david-eagleman/home/

As recently as 2 years ago, international telecom exists were lamenting the proliferation of wifi - arguing that local LTE is more efficient than wifi; and handsets should use local LTE base stations instead of wifi.

Be very afraid of this - telcos will take action to make their delivery mechanisms metered and rated.

https://r.kyaa.sg/vknoez.epub

Banks, insurance, finance, those generally are perceived as devil spawn, but I really can't imagine another business with such mediocrity, such an ingrained disregard for the customer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portuguese_Colonial_War

Interesting, I do exactly this. In parts of my home the Verizon coverage is more reliable than my own wifi.

This is fixable.

There, problem solved, I'm sure the carriers will jump right on this.

Though it seems fair, if they want to eat into the public unlicensed spectrum, they ought to give the public access to their own spectrum.

Qualcomm, who is leading the effort behind LTE-U, belongs to the Wi-Fi Alliance and submits things to the IEEE 802.11 Working Group, and its not like they're not making money no matter what they sell.

Maybe Qualcomm should be removed from the Wi-Fi Alliance and banned from the IEEE 802.11 Working Group if they continue to push for standards and "features" (term used loosely) that damage Wi-Fi.

5.8 GHz isn't even good for long distance transmission, this is why it was given away as an unlicensed block to begin with. So, what the hell?

Not only that, cell phone data already has tons of frequency space; they just keep wasting it on 2G, 3G, non-LTE 3.9G, non-VoLTE voice. It is not my problem that "oh, customers are still using hardware that doesn't support more efficient use of the spectrum"; I own a reasonably up to date LTE phone that can do VoLTE, I did not pay out my ass for one (its an original Nexus 5).

LTE is the first protocol that is meant to be fully backwards and forwards compatible, all previous protocols just muck up perfectly good spectrum. You know what happened when USB came out? Or HDMI and DisplayPort? Or PCI-E? Or SATA and SAS? They all quickly replaced all legacy standards and became the norm in short order. Their collective hallmark is easier and cheaper to produce hardware that has a protocol that is forwards and backwards compatible (something they all share with LTE).

LTE, however? In my town, about half the spectrum is dedicated to non-LTE usage, yet most phones around here are LTE data, with or without VoLTE capability, and the few dumb phones remaining are 3G voice.

You know what that means? 5 mbps or less is the norm for downstream data unless you're right in front of the tower, then I've seen it go past 50 mbps. If they shut off 2G completely, shut off 3G/3.9G data, moved all the VoLTE-capable customers over to VoLTE, and shrank the 3G voice segment down to only what we need to serve the area, we'd be getting 10 or 15 mbps instead of 5.

We don't need more cell phone spectrum, we just need to stop wasting it on ancient inefficient protocols.

"Wi-Fi devices aren’t equipped to recognize the presence of an LTE-U device and don’t know that they should only transmit when the LTE-U device has scheduled itself to remain silent."

and that's why LTE-U cannot be allowed to exist

unless they are just looking for a reason to sell everyone new devices, again

47 U.S. Code § 333 - Willful or malicious interference

No person shall willfully or maliciously interfere with or cause interference to any radio communications of any station licensed or authorized by or under this chapter or operated by the United States Government.

This puts some responsibility on the LTE operator to not stomp on WiFi.

Jammers on the other hand do intrinsically show malicious intent because they operate in a way which serves no purpose other than denial of service for other local transmitters.

1) In the long-term, regulation is to the benefit of the incumbents.

2) Most in technology prefer light regulation

3) If you act as a "bad citizen" in such a way to piss off people you can change #2.

Thus the result of acting out is more regulation, which increases your costs, but also acts as a significant barrier to entry for future competitors.

There isn't a way for Wi-Fi stations to know what TDMA time slots are "free," how long those time slots are, and there isn't a way for Wi-Fi networks to "sign up" for a time slot with the TDMA networks. The TDMA networks just decide to talk at some predefined interval without consulting the Wi-Fi networks to see when they would like to talk. This does not sound fair to me - it's kind of like saying "I'm going to yell very loudly once every minute. If it interrupts the conversation that you are trying to have then too bad for you. But I'm not going to yell when my friends are yelling, because we have an agreement in place."

Normally, Wi-Fi stations use CSMA/CA [2] to avoid transmitting when other Wi-Fi stations are transmitting, which overall reduces the number of lost Wi-Fi frames for everybody. This is what I mean by "don't talk while I'm talking." So the impact of Wi-Fi on Wi-Fi is materially lower than the impact of LTE-U on Wi-Fi simply from a statistical standpoint.

In addition, LTE-U only transmits when it detects other Wi-Fi transmitters. However, due to the hidden node problem [3], not all Wi-Fi stations that are using the channel can necessarily be detected by an LTE-U station, but the LTE-U station is still able to interfere with them. So there will be some quiet Wi-Fi stations that the LTE-U station can't see at all, and when the LTE-U station decides the channel is mostly empty and blasts its signal there, the quiet Wi-Fi station will be disproportionately overcome with interference. Again, the interference would be TDMA interference, but the Wi-Fi access points would not know how or when to avoid TDMA collisions, so the interference would be worse than Wi-Fi interference.

Normally, with Wi-Fi and CSMA/CA, the gaps in the louder station's transmissions would be good opportunities for the quieter station to start transmitting, allowing them to sometimes take turns even though the louder station cannot hear the quieter station, and the hidden node problem would be mitigated as best as CSMA/CA is capable of doing so. But with TDMA interference, there isn't any cue that Wi-Fi can take which indicates that now is a good time to transmit without interference.

This could all be avoided if LTE-U didn't solely operate on a TDMA basis, but also ceased transmitting (or skipped time slots) while Wi-Fi networks are transmitting.

LTE-U risks starting or worsening a "loudness war" where other unlicensed spectrum users decide to buy louder and louder unlicensed equipment up to (and possibly past) the legal limit, because their networks are unusable with too much interference otherwise.

Combine this design decision with the interest that wireless telecommunications companies have preferring their LTE networks over the well-being of Wi-Fi networks, and it starts to paint a sinister picture - that telecommunications companies might be attempting to deliberately interfere with unlicensed Wi-Fi networks in order to promote their own networks and equipment as being superior.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_division_multiple_access [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrier_sense_multiple_access_... [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hidden_node_problem

Do I understand that one could also run a personal/private LTE in this 5.8ghz band ?

Sending out letters with promises doesn't mean squat.

Establish some kind of protocol for negotiating where in devices acting on behalf of interested parties (you, your neighbors, the local telco) continuously negotiate for spectrum and power. The winner for a slot pay the other parties for their slot.

It's not like violators can hide, so it should be pretty easy to enforce compliance.

The problem is that LTE-U is going to use a TDMA scheme, and, according to the article, will not include any collision avoidance. This means that it may start transmitting at the same time your wifi is transmitting.

The main difference compared to carrier sense is that I'm suggesting a competition based negotiation, not cooperation based. Instead of waiting for a free spot, you buy the spot.

If the unlicensed spectrum is a commons, the problem with uncooperative commoners like this LTE-U thing looks an instance of the tragedy of the commons. In a sense I'm suggesting a form privatization.

http://www.fiercewireless.com/tech/story/fcc-votes-adopt-new...