Sept. 29, 2015
CED Magazine
Evolve, a new coalition formed by AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and others, made its debut Monday. The group was assembled in order to tout the advantages of deploying LTE-Unlicensed (LTE-U) and License Assisted Access (LAA) technologies in unlicensed spectrum bands.
The Open Technology Institute (OTI) was quick to respond with some sharp criticism of Evolve’s message. OTI is concerned technologies like LTE-U, which maintain control channels over licensed spectrum, won’t have any incentive to fairly share unlicensed spectrum and could therefore harm existing Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies using the frequencies.
“It is more than a bit ironic that the mobile carriers are finally recognizing the enormous and undeniable benefits of unlicensed spectrum as part of a campaign for a technology that could hobble the use of Wi-Fi by potential competitors. Consumers now use Wi-Fi to transmit the majority of mobile device data traffic. This has avoided the predicted spectrum crunch and makes mobile broadband more affordable. Our public interest coalition fears that if carriers use LTE-U to control access to the unlicensed commons, consumers could end up paying more and missing out on the potential competition of Wi-Fi first offerings by wireline providers and MVNOs such as Republic Wireless,” Michael Calabrese, Director of the Wireless Future Project at the Open Technology Institute, said in a statement.
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