Industry Makes Progress on Unlicensed LTE Coexistence

The Office of Engineering and Technology and the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau have been closely monitoring industry efforts to ensure that new versions of LTE technology can co-exist with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed devices operating at 5 GHz. The Commission’s rules for unlicensed devices are designed to prevent harmful interference to authorized radio services through limits on transmitter power and spurious emissions. Industry has developed standards such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Zigbee within the framework of these rules, generally with the intention of ensuring cooperative sharing of the spectrum by unlicensed devices while recognizing that such devices are not protected from interference.