Tech Giants Say Verizon’s New Cellular Tech Could Wreck Wi-Fi

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I don't care how big Verizon is, I wouldn't want to have Google, Microsoft, and Comcast teaming up to kick my ass. How much do you want to bet the FCC will eventually have to step in?

That sounds great, say Google, Microsoft, Comcast, and others, except for one thing. The proposed system, called LTE in Unlicensed Spectrum or LTE-U, which relies on a combination of new, small cell towers and home wireless routers, risks disrupting the existing Wi-Fi access most people enjoy.
 
Reminds me of the LightSquared / GPS fiasco a few years ago where the LightSquared system was going to bleed over onto the GPS signal bands.
 
Gonna need house sized Faraday cages apparently.

The good side is these will also work against supersized solar flares! :D
 
Was that not also the case wth lightsquared? They had bands or frequency or whatnot that weren't used, that they bought, but gps was using them without licensing them... or something like that, so they got fucked out of it.

Been a while, so memory on it is a bit shot.
 
pothb said:
Was that not also the case wth lightsquared? They had bands or frequency or whatnot that weren't used, that they bought, but gps was using them without licensing them... or something like that, so they got fucked out of it.

Been a while, so memory on it is a bit shot.
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GPS has a dedicated band (several of them actually - L1, L2, L5...). The problem with GPS is that the signal has to travel 14k miles and by the time it's on the earth's surface it's pretty weak. The LightSquared bandwidth wasn't officially in the GPS bandwidth.. it was right beside it. The problem was that LightSquared was powerful and bled over into the GPS area and interfered with reception. It was especially damaging to high precision receivers (the type that can get centimeter accuracy).
 
So if a company actively tries to block wifi by boosting their signal to overlap all other local wifi networks in a hotel this is illegal, and the FCC comes down on them like a wrecking ball. If Verizon does it with their technology but they're not "trying" to do it, then it's fair game because it's all "unlicensed spectrum" ??
 
It doesn't help that the article was shoddy on definition of terms. They appeared to be using Wi-Fi and wireless interchangeably when talking about different things. Either this new tech operates in the 2.4 GHz spectrum or it doesn't. They never mentioned what band it was in. Even if it's in a different band, I know it could still bleed over depending on the methodology, but in a discussion like this the details are everything, and the article fails at that.
 
Wrecking Wifi would basically kill tethering. Then they could claim tethering is "not possible" and try charge you $40/mo per device to add them to the account. I see what they're doing here and it's nasty.
 
sfsuphysics said:
So if a company actively tries to block wifi by boosting their signal to overlap all other local wifi networks in a hotel this is illegal, and the FCC comes down on them like a wrecking ball. If Verizon does it with their technology but they're not "trying" to do it, then it's fair game because it's all "unlicensed spectrum" ??
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Even unlicensed bands have emission limits. Your examples have nothing to do with one another.
 
bigddybn said:
Even unlicensed bands have emission limits. Your examples have nothing to do with one another.
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No they do not, however the outcome in both of my examples is the same, a 3rd party does something, and then wifi no longer works in an area.
 
At any given time I have more than a dozen visible WiFi networks from my apartment (including the city wide one from Comcast) ... if Comcast can figure out a way to offer a WiFi counterpart to their hardline network I am fairly certain that Verizon could figure it out too
 
sfsuphysics said:
No they do not, however the outcome in both of my examples is the same, a 3rd party does something, and then wifi no longer works in an area.
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You might want to inform the FCC that these bands have no emission limits because they certainly seem to think that they do. https://transition.fcc.gov/Bureaus/Engineering_Technology/Documents/bulletins/oet63/oet63rev.pdf

A hotel using a booster and gain antenna system that exceed that maximum emission limit for the band they are operating on is violating FCC rules. This activity is illegal.

Verizon transmitting within those emission limits even in bands typically occupied by unlicensed wifi devices is still very much in compliance. This activity is perfectly legal. It's a douchebag thing to do for sure, but it's perfectly legal.
 
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