Vodafone and Wi-Fi vendors play tug of war over 6 GHz

Vodafone says tests of frequencies in the upper 6 GHz band for mobile phone calls were successful, and is pushing for it to be available for cellular networks. The problem? Wi-Fi vendors also want this spectrum for wireless broadband. The telecoms biz reckons its engineers at a lab in Spain used a smartphone tuned to …

[Anonymous Coward]

Traffic ....

Both WiFi and cellular are handling ever increasing amounts of traffic, and in both cases you've got a choice handling it using more masts or more spectrum on each mast.

Obviously both sides are going to prefer the latter.

This chunk of spectrum doesn't handle walls very well, so maybe allocate indoor use for WiFi and outdoor for cellular?

(admittedly some tricky link budget and interference modelling to be done at the boundaries though)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Traffic ....

Spectrum is finite so in some areas they can't do either, hence the battle for 6Ghz which adds a major chunk.

[SomeRandom1]

Phone calls

Would be nice if they could just get voice calls working reliably everywhere in the uk

[ARGO]

Re: Phone calls

So... WiFi calling it is then :-P

[Evil Scot]

Re: Phone calls

Oh. Too soon.

[Spazturtle]

"Without a fair and balanced allocation of 6 GHz spectrum, mobile users worldwide could face a major capacity crunch within just five years."

"He claimed that demand for bandwidth is growing by 30 percent every year as devices including vehicles and various sensors forming the Internet of Things (IoT) are connected to cellular networks."

And this is unsustainable as there is a limited amount of spectrum, we can't give it all to mobile networks.

[Roland6]

So it would seem the Monopolies and Mergers Commission needs to get involved, as allocating more spectrum to the Mobil networks is enhancing their monopoly on wireless communications.

[localzuk]

This doesn't seem right...

"sharing is not needed because the need for mobile spectrum is much greater than the need for Wi-Fi spectrum"

Really? As they already said, most connectivity happens when someone is in their home. So, surely those devices should be defaulting to WiFi and not cellular connectivity when indoors?

I would say the demand for spectrum is considerably higher for WiFi than it is on cellular.

We should all copy the US and just give the entire 6Ghz range to WiFi.

[demonwarcat]

Re: This doesn't seem right...

My understanding of its propagation properties is that 6GHz is better suited to WiFi than mobile usage and in principle it would seem to me that indoors connectivity is better delivered by WiFi connection to a landline than an attenuated mobile signal. Like the respondent above I would prefer that the whole of the 6GHz band was allocated for WiFi. Since I believe that the expectation is that the radio spectrum currently used by broadcast TV will be reallocated to mobile communications I am not sympathetic to the mobile phone companies.

[ARGO]

Re: This doesn't seem right...

As someone noted above, 6GHz doesn't play nicely with walls.

But it's not inherently better for either technology - just make sure there's no wall between you and the access point / cell tower.

[Roland6]

Re: This doesn't seem right...

>” But it's not inherently better for either technology - just make sure there's no wall between you and the access point / cell tower.”

Easier to achieve “no wall….” In the home than from the sofa to cell tower, so it would seem it would naturally be better for WiFi….

Likewise the power levels needed for devices (either held to your ear or in your lap) to talk to the AP (sub 100m) will be significantly lower than to the cell tower (2+ km?)…

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: This doesn't seem right...

>so it would seem it would naturally be better for WiFi….

Unless you're outside. Then the wall is between you and the (low power) access point.

[Elongated Muskrat]

Re: This doesn't seem right...

Really? As they already said, most connectivity happens when someone is in their home. So, surely those devices should be defaulting to WiFi and not cellular connectivity when indoors?

Yeah, but if it's your home Wi-Fi, Vodafone can't charge you per MB.

There is an argument that mobile internet is useful where fixed infrastructure is difficult or expensive to install, but that'll stand up better when Vodafone can provide a cellular data connection to those rural locations, which, in my experience, it can't. If they showed some interest in filling in the rural dead spots rather than elbowing ever more into the congested airwaves in built-up areas, where FTTP is increasingly common, then I'd be inclined to think this wasn't all just a land-grab in order to fleece their poor customers for ever more cash.

[DS999]

The carriers already fought this battle and lost in the US

So now they are trying to fight it in Europe. Hopefully they lose again. If they want more spectrum they should phase out the 2G & 3G like the US did instead of keeping it around forever. They can leave a tiny sliver of 2G for long lived IoT type devices like fire alarms, energy monitors and so forth and repurpose the rest for 5G. There's no reason to continue supporting pre LTE phones any longer, they should announce they will no longer be allowed on the network after Dec 31 2024 and use all that wonderful low band spectrum for 5G.