Verizon is asking the Federal Communications Commission to extend the Special Temporary Authority that has been allowing the carrier to conduct product development testing for LTE in Unlicensed hardware and devices.
According to FCC documents, Verizon’s existing STA for half a dozen sites was to expire on April 16. The pending request was received on April 15th and requests an extension until October while Verizon continues to conduct “very small scale product development testing.” LTE-U is the proprietary standard being developed through the LTE-U Forum, which would enable the aggregation of LTE at 5 GHz with licensed cellular spectrum. Controversy over the potential impacts of LTE-U on Wi-Fi networks operating at 5 GHz led to Wi-Fi Alliance leading a process to develop coexistence testing.
Qualcomm first conducted LTE-U testing under STA with Verizon in early 2016 at two sites in Oklahoma City and Raleigh, N.C., and did similar testing with T-Mobile US. Qualcomm’s STA with Verizon expires in June 2017. The Verizon testing, as originally described by Qualcomm, covered fixed and mobile devices within about a 1-mile radius of the sites and involved as many as 30 small cells and access points within the coverage footprint.
Verizon applied for its own STA in November 2016, to cover six sites at which it said that it would be “working with partner companies to develop equipment that will use multiple technologies, including 802.11 and LTE, in unlicensed 5GHz frequency bands.”
Those six sites are in Oklahoma City; Cary, N.C.; two sites in Raleigh, N.C.; Irving, TX and Westlake, TX. The four sites in Oklahoma and North Carolina each have an operating radius of 1.6 kilometers, while the Texas sites have operating radii of 3.2 km.
