LTE Unlicensed Provides Needed Competition for Wi-Fi, T-Mobile Executive Says
T-Mobile sees LTE-unlicensed as providing the first real competition for Wi-Fi, said Mark McDiarmid, vice president-radio network engineering, during a final panel at the Competitive Carriers Association’s annual conference in Fort Lauderdale. Competition is good, he said. “It encourages ecosystems…
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to perform and reform.” Competition leads to “breakthroughs,” he said. Jim Lienau, chief technology officer at Wisconsin-based Cellcom, said his company is very interested in unlicensed. “Anything that can help to bring a better product or service or any more capacity into rural areas is a plus for us,” he said. “We’re in areas where Wi-Fi isn’t even available,” he said. Cellcom has brought broadband to some areas for the first time, he said. Lienau said he sees LTE-U in the end as “just another tool in the toolbox.” LTE-U is one way to help meet the surge in data in the mobile sector, said Neville Meijers, Qualcomm vice president-small cells. “We’ve got to provide more spectrum, better technology, better devices, innovation around things like carrier aggregation,” he said. “We need better deployment of small cells.” LTE-U also isn't a “land grab” of unlicensed spectrum, Meijers said. Lienau said small carriers also need to “keep their eye on 5G, where it’s going, because we all need to be a part of it.” Carriers need to “keep that engine running” and they have to deploy 4G first to even get to 5G, he said.