A Cognitive Radio Can Aid Wi-Fi and LTE-U Users Get Along

With mobile networks slammed by boosting demand, cellular operators are searching for additional radio waves to perform their customer’s wireless signal demands. One area that they have set their highlights on is an unauthorized patch of spectrum in the band of 5GHz that is mainly utilized for Wi-Fi. But Wi-Fi and mobile entities have discussed for years about whether or not supplementing LTE utilizers to such frequencies would impede with Wi-Fi networks.

To rectify the situation, novel experiment from Portugal’s Institute de Telecommunicacoes demonstrates a strategy that could aid Wi-Fi and LTE users to move along, allow crowded Wi-Fi utilizers to jump over to authorized LTE bands when the area gets limited on the illegal channels. If such an approach is successful in virtual trials, it could aid LTE-U combat few of the technical and political limitations it has experienced since Qualcomm initially proposed it in past year.

The entire kerfuffle instigated when mobile and Qualcomm service providers incorporating T-Mobile and Verizon discussed that moving few of their LTE traffic over to the unauthorized spectrum during traffic periods would supplement additional capacity to their expanding networks and aid them offer faster, better coverage for clients. They considered the extended network enabled by such strategy LTE-U for its employment of the unregistered spectrum.

But cable providers and Wi-Fi operators were not pleased by this. Opponents like the non-profit Wi-Fi group and Google worried that supplementing LTE gadgets to the similar frequencies would link with Wi-Fi users. One major reason for their distress is that Wi-Fi enabled gadgets are programmed to part bandwidth with other instruments that utilize the same router. Such gadgets are simple, implying that they will throttle their user’s consumption to apt another utilizer onto the network, which is why Wi-Fi operators gentle down as more individuals get associated.

Such type of chivalry would perform against Wi-Fi utilizers, though, if LTE clients instantly initiate shifting over to the LTE-U and employing the similar unauthorized spectrum. Faced with little confusion, Shahid Mumtaz, a wireless expert at the Instituto de Telecomunicacoes introduced a technique to assist two groups to stay in harmony. Such method enables Wi-Fi experts to look into a licensed LTE band to transmit data when unauthorized channels are too busy. Mumtaz and his team considered it Wi-Fi-Lic for its utilization of registered spectrum.

The team carried out a replication on the 5 GHz band to illustrate how such a technique would perform, featuring a huge number of users who shared little Wi-Fi routers and a singular 4G LTE work station. Each employer was instructed to transmit a .5 MB data file innumerable times in researches that operate for several days.

Mumtaz confirms he believes more Wi-Fi operators would be established by LTE operators in the upcoming time, and he campaigns to authenticate Wi-Fi-Lic further in an experiment. It is an excellent time to be disclosing such questions. During the early time this year, Qualcomm gathered approval from the Federal Communications Commission U.S. to analyse its initial pieces of LTE-U devices. And the LTE networks are not going to remain less populated any time soon.