CableLabs: Wi-Fi Demand Must Be Met With Spectrum Supply
Policymakers and the FCC, once focused on universal coverage, now must make spectrum decisions around consumers' and industry's capacity and performance needs, CableLabs Vice President-Technology Policy Mark Walker wrote last week. The nation's "overwhelming reliance" on Wi-Fi for carrying consumer…
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data traffic is expected to continue for the foreseeable future, he said. The wider-bandwidth Wi-Fi channels that are coming to support new applications need more contiguous unlicensed spectrum bands, he said. "Without more unlicensed spectrum, Wi-Fi performance will degrade as more devices, applications and users come online." He added that diminished performance will start in dense commercial and residential areas where there are high concentrations of devices and users.