LTE, Are You Always This Loud? Love, Wi-Fi

[Commentary] About 200 Megahertz of spectrum exists for Wi-Fi transmissions, including the extra 100 MHz in the 5-Gigahertz band granted by the Federal Communications Commission in March. Right now, that spectral slice is carrying 50% to 60% of the Internet’s traffic. Mobile carriers, by contrast, maneuver their traffic over some 600 MHz of spectrum -- licensed spectrum, which means they paid for it. (Dearly.) Some 2% to 3% of the Internet’s traffic moves within that slice. The concern is that LTE traffic will deliberately dump into the unlicensed territories, offloading giant blobs of traffic that can’t see or hear what’s already there -- such as anything moving over Wi-Fi. Is this a real problem? Not yet. Could it be? Definitely.