Communication Engineers of the world unite in London, June 8-12

As many as 13 simultaneous sessions. Many of the world's best engineers are coming to the IEEE International Conference on Communications, from the most advanced academics to the slickest salesmen. Hundreds of presentations, far more than anyone can absorb. Alcatel, Ericsson, Huawei, Nokia, Samsung & ZTE will each explain why they and they  alone have the right path to 5G. Of course, none of them can even provide an agreed definition of what 5G is or are even close to delivering relevant equipment. (Marketing is like that.) In particular, experts like NTT are saying one much discussed "5G' technology - high GHz millimeter waves -  is unlikely before 2022-2023. http://5gwnews.com/90-r/211-2022-or-later-for-high-ghz-5g This will be a conference where I can learn just how far along each technology is in 2015.

Lajos Hanzo's "A Stroll with Shannon to Next-Generation Plaza: Large-Scale MIMOs, Single versus Multiple RF Chains and All That..." promises to be particularly interesting. Filming Stanford Professor Andrea Goldsmith, I asked "What are the most interesting problems in communications? What would you include if you were creating a list after Hilbert's?" Her first answer was "Extending the notion of a limit from Shannon's single wire to today's multiple channels."

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Another Gigahertz of Wi-Fi Spectrum Sought

Larry Strickling could become an American hero. NTIA chief Strickling is looking at a remarkable 960 MHz of mostly U.S. government spectrum for sharing. It's not impossible this will double the effective spectrum for use in much of the United States. More likely, the other agencies - largely the Defense Department - will preserve much of the monopoly. Given that the entire Verizon or AT&T network can fit into 55 MHz, the potential gains are impressive.

The 3.5 GHz spectrum recently opened for sharing had largely been used by the Navy. With few aircraft carriers in Iowa and North Dakota, it lay fallow. The same is certainly true of other government spectrum now under investigation. 

"Sharing is the U.S. Government policy," I heard as a member of the U.S. State Department ITAC. That policy arose out of the very important PCAST report, which in 2012 transformed the discussion about spectrum. François Rancy of the ITU and several EU officials have told me how influential it has been internationally.

Craig Mundie of Microsoft and Eric Schmidt of Google officially presented the report and gave it a strong public endorsement. From the FCC,  Rashmi Doshi, Walter Johnston, & Julius Knapp had important input. They are respected engineers who unfortunately are usually overlooked by the FCC Commissioners. Perhaps most important, the PCAST group reached out to independents including Vint Cerf, David Clark, Andrea Goldsmith, Michael Marcus, Robert Horvitz, Jon M. Peha, and Eli Noam.  

One reason that NTIA is making progressive moves is that the group is not just the usual lobbyists and government reps. Charla Rath of Verizon is included, but so is Marty Cooper, who built the first cellphone; Dennis Roberson of IIT, who has done important academic work on how spectrum is used; Dale Hatfield of the University of Colorado; and key public advocates Harold Feld of Public Knowledge and Mike Calabrese of the New America Foundation.   

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IEEE Papers on Cognitive Radio

Ultimately, far more effective spectrum use. Google Fi is an important step towards the ?quadrupling of capacity possible with radios that are smart enough to test the environment and then find spectrum. It works by testing the capacity/signal available in Wi-Fi, the Sprint network and the T-Mobile network. Using Wi-Fi well will allow offloading of 70-90% of all traffic. Being able to switch between Sprint and T-Mobile adds ?20% to effective capacity.

To make that estimate, I tried to find quality analysis of how much is gained by sharing spectrum. The pickings were slim until I realized I should be looking at the massive research on "cognitive radio." I found an enormously helpful compilation from the IEEE http://www.comsoc.org/best-readings/topic/cognitive-radio http://bit.ly/1GiJaTo

Know thyself applies to radio spectrum and networks just as it does to people. A radio that can observe and adjust will deliver data more efficiently and reliably. If it can communicate with those in the same space, they can cooperate even more effectively. (John Cioffi's "Dynamic spectrum management" and "vectoring" is showing the way.)

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First Look: Google Fi is "increasing" spectrum by ~20%. WTF?

In effect, T-Mobile and Sprint are sharing spectrum and that increases capacity. Large spectrum blocks are less likely to be congested, partly a result of queueing theory. Google Fi uses both Sprint & T-Mobile - and lots of Wi-Fi - choosing whichever has capacity when the phone needs it. With Sprint itself, when capacity is used up the data doesn't get through, even when there is spare capacity on T-Mobile. There's no way in practice to hand over the connection. The same, of course, applies to T-Mobile and every other network. 

Until now. When Sprint is congested but T-Mobile isn't, the connection automatically switches to the T-Mobile network and gets through. The two networks have different user bases, peak areas, and physical networks. The peaks are often at different times.

There's no reason Sprint and T-Mobile couldn't do the same with all their customers. The result would be the same as adding spectrum: with cooperation and sharing, you can handle more traffic.

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ITU 5G Focus Group wants you!

Toure on right. 3/4ths of the world
considers him a hero.Join me and play a key role in the future networks. The new ITU 5G Focus Group will rapidly become a key forum. In 2015, "5G" covers everything important coming in wireless networks. No one wants to be promoting last year's ideas, so whatever they are doing they call "5G." That's where the action is. Because so few public interest advocates join, you can make a difference. Sign up. Lower right on the screen.

"The new Focus Group,is open to participation by any interested party," (Official announcement, below.) Joining the committee gets you on a mailing list and invited to meetings and calls. You're not obligated to go to meetings and there is no cost. In return, you have access to an amazing amount of information that never comes near the press. Much of the material is highly technical and/or boring. Just ignore those

All the ITU meetings are open to civil society. I was in the room when ITU Secretary-General Touré reminded the Internet Society they can and should bring up to 100 members of civil society. All documents are open via the U.S. government ITAC. 

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First Look: 4G to 250M at China Mobile:

My take: 4G gear is now cheap enough it's time to stop building 3G except in the poorest countries. 4G is so much cheaper to run essentially every telco in the developed world is quickly migrating. That's a very good thing because carriers inefficiently using spectrum limit everyone's capacity.

China Mobile is proving it also make sense in less affluent countries. They have about ~140M LTE customers today and are adding 15M/month. They expect 250M by year end 2015.

A year ago, 4G phones cost $50-100 more than 3G. As new chips came out and competition developed, the gap has narrowed. Spreadtrum, 20% owned by Intel, say their new chips will bring LTE phone prices down to $65 or so.

Depending on how you measure, 4G LTE delivers 3 to 10 times as much capacity as 3G. (Using MIMO and carrier aggregation.) On a wall street call, a Verizon executive estimated 4G cost 70% less per bit delivered than 3G.

 Adding 15M 4G subscribers per month, China Mobile is on track towards its goal of 250M 4G subs by the end of 2015. That overwhelms the results at both domestic and international alternatives. About six months ago, CM passed early leader Verizon (< 100M, I couldn't find a precise figure.) Yearend 2014, they had built 600,000 base stations and had 90M 4G users. That's about 3x the density of Verizon or AT&T's network, adjusted for China population being 4x the U.S. 400,000 more basestations are expected in 2015, topping 1,000,000. Fiber home is also coming strong in CHina.

Inferences:

TD-LTE phones are not that much more expensive than 3G phones.

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Why telco small cells can't cover highways.

30 MPH traffic would require a prohibitive number of small cells for carriers to do it themselves. Wi-Fi First is not a complete substitute for LTE towers. There will always be spots not covered because small cells, especially in higher frequencies, have very short range. Below, the CEO of American Tower puts forth his opinion why highways and moving vehicles are particularly difficult to cover. James Taiclet via Seeking Alpha.

Taicet. The handoff requirement from places where our towers serve people, which are often around highways and other transportation corridors, suburban or rural, you've got people traveling 30 miles an hour to 60 miles an hour. You can't really have sufficient handoff capability over a very large stretch of multi-mile roadway to economically provide those handoffs. 

Taicet, thinking of carrier small cells, went on to say the economics become dubious with densities of less than 10,000 people per square mile. Wi-Fi First changes that, of course.

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"Rules of the road" for unlicensed spectrum

When Michael Marcus and others at the FCC created the "unlicensed bands," they had little idea about how it would go. Wi-Fi has been a major game changer but that wasn't clear at the beginning. It's yet one more example of what creativity makes possible. Today, we see some congestion in the "commons," as well as proposals to squat on a large share. We need some "rules of the road" to manage the congestion fairly and efficiently. But they need careful design to have minimal impact on innovation. 

Fred Goldstein reminds me that the band is used for more than Wi-Fi.

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