Home
Dean, Mingxi Fan "Will LTE-U as planned detect the Wi-Fi signal to the tablet I'm holding up connected to Wi-Fi in the next room?
An honest answer wipes out the case for LTE-U. Assume the signal measures -80 dBm and it works. Will your LTE-U protect my Wi-Fi against interference?
The answer is no. The best data available is that half of the Wi-Fi signals are -80 dBm or lower. Qualcomm's Dean Brenner and Mingxi Fan are speaking this week at the CTIA show. I hope someone asks them.
Verizon and Qualcomm insist a test to -72 dBm detects all Wi-Fis and prevents interference. These are log scales; -72 dBm is much stronger than -80 dBm. "LTE-U will not harm or interfere with Wi-Fi," the folks from Qualcomm and Verizon tell policy makers. (I found that or an equivalent statement 7 times, including in official FCC filings.) They go further, adding, "If LTE-U interferes with Wi-Fi, it should be prohibited." I agree.
Editorial: LTE-U causes interference with Wi-Fi. The emperor is naked.
Everyone reading this knows Wi-Fi is worth protecting. Verizon is leading a four company grab of as much as half the WI-Fi frequencies One of the best engineers in wireless emails on interference, "-86 dBm might be best." An industry group determined that -82 dBm is right. $300B of corporate power - Verizon and Qualcomm - is demanding -72 dBm. These are log scales. The difference is enormous.
Brenner of Qualcomm has said LTE-U will not interfere. B______. The best available test data shows Verizon's proposal would interfere with more than half of the WI-FI signals. They have provided no evidence otherwise despite seven requests. They are now trying to rig the testing, including by using obsolete equipment. No civil society or public interest people are allowed anywhere near the industry decision. The power here is what Bill Kennard calls "Black Ninjas. They work in the dark and are very, very good."
Ambani pricing isn't crazy. France, Finland, and Denmark are similar.
Xavier Niel is making $billions pricing as low as 40 euro cents. The wireless world is shocked by Reliance Jio's low price of $0.74/gigabyte. I picked up an Indian Express comment "Cheapest 4G-LTE data rates the world has ever seen." By some measures, that's true; by others, such as price/gigabyte at 50 gig, France and Finland are lower. The other Indian carriers are frantically trying to find a way to match Ambani's pricing without going broke.
European data demonstrate today's LTE networks are efficient enough to thrive on low prices. Datamonitor provides this handy chart of best European prices. For 20 gigabyte usage, Denmark is about the same price as Reliance. At 50 gigabytes, Finland and France are actually a little cheaper. In comparison, U.S. prices are astronomical. Germany and Italy, with only three carriers, are very high. (Data below)
Randall Stephenson expects "rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural areas." WTF?
Virtually certain: Almost no deployment of 5G highband to rural areas anytime soon. The CEO of AT&T personally came to D.C. to make an absurd argument for protecting very high pricing for rural backhaul, absolutely the right policy choice.
He told Commissioner Mignon Clyburn "the decision to regulate prices for business data services (“BDS”), particularly fiber-based BDS, will deter incentives for the rapid deployment of 5G wireless technology in rural America."
Everyone knows that AT&T is not going to deploy meaningful amounts of 5G wireless technology in rural America for at least a decade and probably longer. Millimeter wave has a very short reach. Verizon is hoping to get 500 feet. That means an enormous number of cells are required, literally millions for a wide U.S. rollout. It's a sure money loser for a very long time except in dense areas.
10 gig LTE $7.40 at Reliance. All calls free.
"Cheapest 4G-LTE data rates the world has ever seen." India will shortly have more 4G connection that the U.S. has people (317M.) China already does. In a few years, Indians with 4G phones will probably number more than the combined population of Western Europe and the United States. This is a very different Internet.
Mukesh Ambani spent $20B on the network across India. He intends to get 100M users as soon as possible. The other telcos are dropping prices to match or going out of business. India has 12 wireless carriers competing, but many think that will quickly come down to 4 or 5. Telenor is the latest to give up.
Everything is free until December 31. If $7.40 is too much, you can buy one gig for $0.74 on a day pass.
Tim Farrar: U.S. auction ?$25-35B
Paul Milgrom's auction design keeps everyone guessing. Anyone who tells you she is sure of the outcome doesn't know very much. I was so wrong the last time I'm not even trying this time. Wall Streeters I respect, including Craig Moffett and John Hodulik, believe the phone companies + Comcast will find it very hard to bid more than $30B-$40B.
That will let them split about 70 MHz except in a few big cities if no one plays the spoiler. AT&T 4G customers run in 20 MHz. That would be a good outcome for the carriers. The last auction had prices about three times as high, presumably because Charlie Ergen made an attempt to corner the market.
AT&T has 40 MHz of completely empty spectrum ready to put to work, enough to create a Verizon-sized network. Verizon CFO Fran Shammo said Verizon bid so high last time they could have built the same capacity for a third of what they spent.
Page 7 of 22