Will Wi-Fi Make 5G LTE Irrelevant?

[thiggins]

Wi-Fi may have a better shot than 5G LTE in the race to be the next mobile technology.

Read on SmallNetBuilder

 

[Marko Koskenoja]

Wi-Fi may have a better shot than 5G LTE in the race to be the next mobile technology.

Read on SmallNetBuilder

Good job Tim! This was a well written account of the different views and possibilities that WiFi, LTE and 5G may take in the near future. Very informative - thank you.

 

[sfx2000]

LTE

LTE is more than just a radio interface (the eUTRAN) - it's an architecture, which has always included WiFi (and CDMA/EVDO) as part of the Evolved Packet Core. Same for Wimax/802.16...

While the e-UTRAN was technically very strong, it was the Evolved Packet Core (EPC) that won the race...

"5G" is a marketing term, but where we're at - the 3GPP LTE-EPC is not just pushing higher speeds, it's expanding into things like the IoT arena (NB-IOT for one), and improved interconnectivity across different bearers...

It's a very interesting time for the telco's especially, as the EPC specs define interfaces, but they don't define implementation - and we see ATT and Verizon (along with others) migrating their cores into something more cloudlike similar to Google, Amazon, and Microsoft...

 

[iwod]

With LTE, you pretty much get a decent AND guarantee connection. So far WiFi feels like a best effort ( Whether it is designed like that or not )
Logging in still sucks, some AP are stuck with ADSL backbone. And in high populated area it is hugely congested and UX mostly sucks.

I am waiting to see if LTE-U, LAA, or MuLTEFire will be better.

 

[Marko Koskenoja]

Here is a good overview on Multefire
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/...mm-betting-on-multefire-to-blend-lte-and-wifi

 

[Threska49]

Good article. One does get the impression that all of it is "throwing at the wall, and see what sticks"? Not the most efficient way to building a nationwide "last mile".