Joey Padden

[Commentary] Now that we have a “Listen Before Talk” (“LBT”) protocol for LAA/eLAA and a “Coexistence Test Plan” for LTE-U all the threats to Wi-Fi have been eliminated, right? Wrong. At least two big problems remain. First, LBT addresses channel access, but it does not fully address channel occupancy issues. Second, the coexistence test plan will be of little value without a baseline data set documenting the performance of modern Wi-Fi in the wild prior to any LTE-U or LAA deployment.

I know that unlicensed spectrum is supposed to be the “Wild West” – the land of permission-less innovation. And, if all that was at stake with Wi-Fi was the opportunity to do email at the airport or to surf the Web in your home, it might make sense for the government to keep hands off. But, the inconvenient truth is that Wi-Fi has become the essential communications foundation of modern society. The national electric power grid, nuclear power plants, hospitals, and almost every institution and piece of infrastructure in our Nation relies on Wi-Fi. Was it a mistake to let this happen? Probably. But can we simply pretend that it didn’t happen? No. What follows below is a more detailed explanation of why LBT and the Coexistence Test Plan alone are not sufficient to protect our Nation’s critical reliance on Wi-Fi.

[Joey Padden is a wireless technologist who previously worked at Layer3 TV]