Liberty Global and CableLabs have joined the MulteFire Alliance, an international consortium with the goal of helping to develop next-generation wireless technology. The main focus of the Alliance is to ensure that next-generation LTE mobile standards are compatible with shared and unlicensed spectrum. Compatibility obviously helps make sure that any next generation technology is more widely available and that it can coexist alongside WiFi and so on. The Alliance further points out that what also makes this technology unique is that operators without access to the licensed spectrum still will be able to use it. That can help remove entry hurdles and helps push innovation.
“Wireless connectivity has become critically important for consumers,” Balan Nair, CTO of Liberty Global, comments. “By joining the MulteFire Alliance, we are driving the future of wireless for our customers.”
Ralph Brown, CTO of CableLabs, says this announcement will help arm the cable industry with a new wireless technology that builds on its success in providing WiFi and mobile services and complements the industry’s fixed broadband technology.
The MulteFire Alliance is working to adapt 3GPP-based mobile wireless standards for shared and unlicensed spectrum so that the technology is broadly available and fairly coexists with WiFi and other technologies. MulteFire is based on 3GPP Release 13 License Assisted Access LTE (LAA) and Release 14 enhanced LAA (eLAA), which uses Listen-Before-Talk (LBT) etiquette to share spectrum in a manner similar to WiFi.
However, unlike LAA, which is anchored to licensed spectrum and must be used in conjunction with a mobile network, MulteFire will operate entirely in unlicensed or shared spectrum, so that operators without licensed mobile spectrum can utilize it. This “standalone” functionality has been proposed in the 3GPP standards body for both LTE and 5G. By building this capability in the Alliance, its member companies will enable its adoption in global standards and the corresponding broad benefit of wireless innovation.
“We appreciate that the Alliance is committed to transparency and collaboration, given the importance of unlicensed spectrum to broadband access,” Rob Alderfer, VP of technology policy at CableLabs, notes. “As we move toward ever greater sharing of scarce spectrum resources, reliable coexistence across technologies is essential as we continue to innovate. It’s what we believe is the most critical aspect of the Alliance, and one that will be important as the industry moves toward 5G standards.”
Mazen Chmaytelli, MulteFire Alliance president, says that operators in the cable industry are “ideal partners in our effort to develop new wireless technology.”
“The Alliance is open for broad, global participation, and since one of our goals is to drive our work into global standards, we are establishing liaisons with 3GPP, CBRS Alliance and IEEE to keep them apprised of our progress,” Chmaytelli adds.
Other members of the Alliance Qualcomm, Intel, Nokia and Ericsson, and a full list is available here.
