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Cellphones Communications Handhelds Technology

Indoor LTE Wireless: Not To Be Overlooked At Mobile World Congress (networkworld.com) 21

alphadogg writes: Likely to get lost among the shiny new Android and Windows smartphones and tablets at this week's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona are demonstrations of technology that could bring LTE indoors over the 3.5 GHz wireless spectrum band, previously the sole domain of the military and satellite providers. But the exploitation of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service in the 3550-3700 MHz band, which the FCC voted about a year ago to make available for shared wireless broadband use, is worth paying attention to, especially if you're an organization that could stand to deliver more oomph for your employees who rely on wireless devices to make and receive calls in the office. CBRS — backed by the likes of Intel and Google — could overcome some of the troubles people currently have making LTE calls from indoors, due to interference or weak signals that result from penetrating tough building materials.
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Indoor LTE Wireless: Not To Be Overlooked At Mobile World Congress

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  • by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Tuesday February 23, 2016 @11:11AM (#51566995) Homepage Journal

    This is a push to get you to pay for a wireless service at home when before you had wifi that is free.

  • Way I understand it, the CBRS will allow you to get a little desktop box, connect to your friendly Cable Provider ISP and distribute LTE within your premises without a license. However, at this time, no phone made will work on this new CBRS band. It will be a future option.

  • We have already solved the issue of making and receiving cellular calls indoors, it's called Wi-Fi calling. Every serious operator, at least here in the US, has implemented it. And Wi-Fi is carrier agnostic, so it doesn't matter which network you subscribe to, your Wi-Fi will work. Why do we need to add proprietary boxes from different providers, etc. using different spectrum when Wi-Fi calling works and even makes the cellular network extenders obsolete?

    This is a few steps backwards from what we already

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • I wasn't aware that anyone other than T-Mobile supported it, but it's good to hear otherwise.

        I can confirm firsthand that Sprint does, on some models of phone (I have a Samsung S4 Mini that supports it). Additionally, there is another carrier, Republic Wireless, (they are an MVNO) that bases their network model on having you connect to WiFi as much as possible and using it for everything when you are connected to it. There may be others.

        That said, I will say it's got good and bad points. This is my personal experience:

        The good: 1. Call establishment is instant. You tap the "talk" button and th

  • What we need are additional WiFi bands that work almost the same way as the 2.4 and 5GB bands.
  • Malls suck. So do big office buildings. Also stadiums. As do any sort of "complex". At least they suck for cellular reception. Layer upon layer of steel flooring with few if any windows on the outside; dense core structures creating yet more RF shadows and reflections. All being served by exterior antennas at oblique angles.

    Wifi can only augment service. It's too short range, too inefficient, and too balkanized. Indoors the access points are all stepping on top of each other and while Passport 2.0 will im

  • VoLTE takes advantage of the 800MHz band - which has much better building penetration characteristics - and it is already here. So it's really not surprising nobody cares about whatever this story is.

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