Red Sox Win! Will Consumers?

As the Senate Commerce Committee holds the first in a set of hearings on spectrum policy and mobile broadband, we thought we’d address an issue that is critical to the future of technologies like Wi-Fi.

We know the Red Sox didn’t win last week, but fans did. Last Friday, Fenway Park unveiled its upgraded Wi-Fi network, now available throughout the park. Whether it’s a good or bad thing that fans of the (as yet) losing club have the unfettered ability to tweet, upgrade seats and post to message boards is up for debate. But one thing is clear: in less than 20 years, a technology that started as an experiment has become part of our lives and our national pastime.

And lest it seems like we’re just talking about games: according to Cisco, about 50% of Internet traffic worldwide now relies on Wi-Fi (compared to just 3% that relies on mobile networks). In particular, consumers’ use of Wi-Fi is significant and growing, and as more devices come equipped with Wi-Fi, consumers will no doubt rely on it more.

WifiForward studies have found that unlicensed spectrum generates $222 billion in economic value, contributing $6.7 billion directly to U.S GDP in 2013. By 2017, these numbers are expected to grow to $547.2 billion and $49.7 billion, respectively. Even further, Wi-Fi serves as a critical on-ramp to the Internet for many communities. African American and Latino Internet users are more likely to use Wi-Fi in public places than other means to connect to the Internet. And African American and Latino Internet users use Wi-Fi more frequently to go online than their white counterparts. Our research shows how critical Wi-Fi is to transforming our classrooms, helping teachers provide specialized lessons catered at each student’s skill level and supporting bring your own device initiatives as well as the Obama Administration’s goals for next generation learning.

But we’re at a Wi-Fi crossroads.

The Wi-Fi we use every day runs on unlicensed spectrum. Wi-Fi and other unlicensed technologies travel across the spectrum use various methods to ensure that all these technologies have sufficient access to the spectrum to serve their end users’ needs. Some, for example, use a so-called “politeness protocol,” which means that they wait for the spectrum band to clear before connecting its end user to the Internet. Think of it like this — unlicensed spectrum bands are a playground slide and the children on the slide are the unlicensed signals. Today’s users of the band are sharers who make sure that everyone has a turn on the slide.

In recent months, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Huawei, Verizon, T-Mobile, China Mobile and others have expressed increasing interest in deployment of a technology called LTE Unlicensed (LTE-U).

LTE-U — the ability to use 4G LTE wireless technology in unlicensed spectrum — does not share well with other users of the band, and these companies are planning to release it outside of the normal standards-setting process. Unlike Wi-Fi, it’s not designed to listen and wait for open channels, and as a result, operates in a manner that can take over unlicensed frequencies while in use, degrading traffic or knocking it out completely. Some worry that such a “rude” technology could eventually make the band unusable, making it impossible for the technologies that prioritize sharing with all users to get through. Without technical changes to LTE-U’s approach, in any conflict with Wi-Fi, the LTE signal will always be more likely to get through than the Wi-Fi signal.

Earlier this month, companies and consumer groups registered these concerns with the FCC. Their warning: unless implementation is done carefully in full cooperation with recognized standards bodies like the IEEE, LTE-U has real potential to crowd out other uses of the band, including new and innovative technologies as well as established technologies like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

There is still time for industry-led cooperation to work here — as it has worked with other technologies in the past — to keep unlicensed bands fertile ground for permission-less innovation. With those seeking to deploy LTE-U engaging in meaningful consultation with unlicensed users to ensure that appropriate politeness protocols are built in by design, a solution is possible. But, until then, licensed carriers should explore using the 3.5 GHz band that the FCC recently identified as available to add spectrum capacity for their customers. If the industry fails to develop workable sharing and coordination mechanisms to preserve the access and innovative use of unlicensed bands, the FCC will need to act.

And the Red Sox? We’ll save our thoughts for the Green Monster’s digital wall.