An LTE connection in a typical smartphone sends mobile data over airwaves that support everything from Google Maps to FaceTime. But soon, all sorts of devices will be connected wirelessly to the Internet, from home appliances to automobiles to virtual reality headsets -- and they'll all need a lot of fast, reliable bandwidth.
That's why the government on Monday announced it's looking to open up a huge swath of these airwaves for companies, more than they've ever had before. If it's approved, the result could lead to an array of new apps, services and ways to send and receive information. To draw an analogy, it could be to wireless Internet what gigabit fiber meant for wired networks: huge amounts of new capacity that unlocks the next generation of Internet-driven entrepreneurship.
The plan will be officially circulated by Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, to his fellow commissioners Thursday.
If it's approved, companies will start getting licenses to use the airwaves at extremely high frequencies compared with today. Many existing cordless phones and Wi-Fi antennas work in the 2.4 gigahertz range, but the policy change from the FCC would open up channels in the 28 GHz range and higher.
"That's damn important," Wheeler said in a speech Monday, "because it means U.S. companies will be first out of the gate" developing new technologies and standards for 5G, the next in mobile Internet after the current generation of 4G.
At such high frequencies the airwaves don't go through walls or very far; they tend to bounce around instead of penetrating obstacles. But that may not be a bad thing; it means companies such as Verizon or AT&T could set up hyper-local cell sites around a hospital, for example, and the hospital could use all the bandwidth provided by that site without worrying about others clogging the site with demand.
Not only will these new channels be higher up in frequency, they'll also be much wider, which makes them able to support a lot more wireless traffic, similar to the difference between a small residential road and extra-wide highways. Channels that are 5 megahertz or 10 megahertz in size will jump to 200 MHz channels, Wheeler said.
Under the plan, the government would set aside as much as 14 GHz for unlicensed uses. That's a large amount of the airwave spectrum not owned or controlled by any corporation and that can be used for Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, garage door openers, hobbyists and tinkerers. Companies in the mobile industry may get access to their own commercial spectrum in what Wheeler called the government's biggest such offering in history.
The upshot is that Americans may soon be among the first to start tinkering with 5G mobile Internet and all that follows from it. The FCC is expected to vote on Wheeler's proposal next month.
Business on 06/21/2016