How Shared Spectrum Can Improve In-Building Cellular
By: Juan Santiago, Director of Product Management
You’ve been there before: You popped into a store and wanted to look something up on your smartphone while waiting in line. However, the cell signal shows just one lousy bar. You consider logging on to Wi-Fi but there are multiple inconvenient steps that aren’t worth the hassle while you’re waiting in line. Nope, you’ll just wait to go back outside and go somewhere else next time.
Why can’t Wi-Fi be as simple as pulling the phone out of your pocket, like cellular? Or, better yet, why can’t cellular just be everywhere Wi-Fi is, including deep inside buildings? The answer lies in a little-known fact about cellular: Your phone company owns the right to use the cellular airwaves everywhere, even if, as in the example above, it’s not actually using them where you happen to be.
You may think that the store, realizing that you may never come back, would be willing to spend a little cash for better cell service, but it can’t. The store doesn’t own the right to use the airwaves inside its walls, thus it must work with each phone company individually to convince them to install a Continue reading