So far, this series of blog posts has focused on what private companies are doing in the unlicensed spectrum space—including startups, cable operators, Google and mobile carriers. In the next few posts I’ll consider what cities and local neighborhoods have done, are doing, and are planning to do with unlicensed spectrum. As a first step in considering current and future “community WiFi” projects, it’s worth taking a look back at an earlier wave of municipal WiFi networks. These date back roughly a decade, with one of the most ambitious early projects, in Philadelphia, being announced in April 2005, just a […]
In the last post in this series I reviewed several different points of view regarding the pros and cons of cellular carriers using “LTE Unlicensed” (LTE-U) to expand their network capacity. In this post I’ll take a closer look at movement in this direction among U.S. carriers. [Note: The deployment of LTE in unlicensed bands is referred to by multiple names, including “LTE Advanced in unlicensed spectrum,” “LTE Unlicensed” (LTE-U) and, most recently “Licensed Assisted Access” LTE (LAA). In this post I’ll refer to it as LTE-U, though other names may appear in some excerpts included in the post.] The two […]
A key theme in this “unlicensed spectrum” series of blog posts has been the potential negative impacts on wireless carriers of lower-cost services built on WiFi connectivity, either in a “WiFi-first” or “WiFi-only” mode. In this two-part post the focus will shift to potential LTE deployments in unlicensed spectrum by licensed carriers, as they seek to increase network capacity while retaining tighter integration with their existing LTE-based networks than they can achieve with WiFi technology. The prospect of carriers deploying LTE in unlicensed bands marks a new phase in the history of unlicensed spectrum. In this new phase licensed carriers […]
In an earlier post in this series I discussed business issues and opportunities related to a potential launch by Comcast of a WiFi-based service that could: further monetize the company’s investments in millions of in-home dual-SSID WiFi gateway devices; provide it with a relatively low-cost, high-margin entry into the wireless market space; give it a powerful position in the emerging market for nomadic, multiscreen multimedia services and; strengthen its overall market power in the communication sector as a whole. In this two-part post I’m considering this same topic, but from a public policy perspective. Viewed in very broad strokes, we have […]
The focus of my last post in this series was business issues and opportunities related to a potential launch by Comcast of a WiFi-based service that could: further monetize the company’s investments in millions of in-home dual-SSID WiFi gateway devices; provide it with a relatively low-cost, high-margin entry into the wireless market space; give it a powerful position in the emerging market for nomadic, multiscreen multimedia services and; strengthen its overall market power in the communication sector as a whole. In this two-part post I’m going to consider this same topic, but from a public policy perspective. Viewed in very […]
The last post in this series discussed Cablevision’s recently launched WiFi-only service called Freewheel. It ended with the speculation that Comcast—the nation’s largest provider of cable TV and broadband services—might look to Freewheel for lessons about how to approach the WiFi-based service it is expected to launch sometime in the near future. Though Comcast executives have so far been reluctant to discuss their WiFi plans, they did shed a little light on their thinking during the company’s February 24 yearend earnings call. For example, during the call’s Q&A session, Comcast Cable CEO Neil Smit, describing WiFi as “a great asset,” […]
I ended an earlier post in this series by suggesting that Cablevision’s launch of Freewheel, a WiFi-only wireless service, marks a new chapter in the emerging “nomadic multiscreen multimedia service battleground.” In this post I’ll elaborate a bit on what I meant by that. That earlier post reviewed the cable industry’s 20-year history of launching then aborting ventures intended to use licensed spectrum to compete in the wireless market. As comments made to investors in 2009 by Comcast CFO Michael Angelakis suggest, the balance of risk and rewards in these ventures never proved attractive enough for Comcast and other cable operators to […]
