LTE-U R gd 2 go: FCC gives unlicensed spectrum its coat, pushes it out the door

The FCC has approved the first crop of LTE-U base stations for sale in the US, a move aimed at opening unlicensed spectrum space to boost broadband speeds. The US comms watchdog said that Ericsson and Nokia have been cleared to begin offering base stations that use a portion of the 5GHz band to move LTE wireless broadband data …

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This should not be a huge problem

In the US at least, the 5GHz band in only legal indoors.

[jockmcthingiemibobb]

Re: This should not be a huge problem

So all the WISPs using Cambium, Ubiquiti, Mimosa and Mikrotik 5ghz gear are doing so illegally? I don't think so. This is a sad decision for these small innovative businesses as the LTE-U will undoubtedly cause issues. End customers will just end up having less choice and paying more to the usual big telcos

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Re: This should not be a huge problem

It's legal for Wi-Fi use indoors only - this is usually buried in the small print - of course the signals can/do leak outside the building but most walls have a decent attenuation at 5GHz. I've just returned from a convention at San Antonio - the convention center Wi-Fi was all 5Ghz, nothing in the 2.4GHz band at all.

[druck]

One word...

..see the icon -->

[Anonymous Coward]

Can any phones even use this?

Sure, they have 5.8 GHz antennas for wifi, but are they able to use that to connect to a cellular network via LTE? I don't understand why US Cellular is in such a rush? Maybe they plan to use it for hotspots only?