Gets ARCEP permission to test. Ted Rappaport at NYU has convinced the industry that high-frequency, millimeter wave wireless can work. But many questions remain. What are the effects of walls, windows, rain, and distance? We have only partial answers.

France Telecom/Orange intends to find out. They just receive approval for a year's worth of testing in the ancient city of Belfort. Much of the testing to date has been in Manhattan, Brooklyn and other highrise areas. Belfort is ideal for testing low-rise and suburban regions.

Millimeter wave is newer technology that's getting much of the early 5G news flow. It remains unclear in what areas it will be the best choice. In urban areas, the French are proving you can get enormous capacity at minimal cost by turning on a second SSID in every home gateway. MIMO is ready to go from 2 antennas to 8; Henry Samueli of Broadcom is working on 50 antennas. UCSD has a prototype with 256 antennas. Massive MIMO prefers millimeter wave for the smaller antennas but  you can fit many medium-sized antennas on buildings and even some towers. 

No good engineer doubts gigabit wireless is coming.

Thanks to TelecomTV for pointing me to this story.