Globalstar Says TLPS Plans Won't Involve LTE-U

Globalstar is committing to its terrestrial low-power service (TLPS) plan being Wi-Fi based, not LTE-U, in hopes of helping speed along regulatory approval for the controversial broadband service, Barbee Ponder, vice president-regulatory affairs, told us. In an FCC filing posted Thursday in docket 13-213, the company said its private Wi-Fi channel in the 2.4 GHz band "is based on the existing IEEE 802.11 standard commonly referred to as 'Wi-Fi,'" and it doesn't plan to set up any service in unlicensed spectrum. It won't deploy LTE-U in the 2.4 GHz band until the FCC allows LTE-U deployment in unlicensed spectrum, the satellite company said.

"We've always thought of TLPS being 802.11 compliant," despite speculation Globalstar wants to deploy an LTE-U-based service, Ponder told us. FCC review of TLPS began in November 2013, and committing to deploying it in the 802.11 standard is an effort "to take a bunch of extraneous issues off the table," he said. If the agency even wanted to specifically require that the company not deploy LTE-U service, "that's fine," he said. "There's no commercial reason why Globalstar would want to deploy anything immediately other than a service based on 802.11." At CTIA in Las Vegas and back at the FCC, carriers have been fighting for LTE-U while Wi-Fi proponents including NCTA are saying they are concerned about interference.

While LTE-U has been under fire recently by numerous Wi-Fi advocates for possible interference issues (see 1509100035), the Globalstar commitment seems to be about trying to calm opponents' concerns, said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld Friday. Globalstar has said its TLPS -- using 20 MHz from 2473-2495 MHz -- would help relieve Wi-Fi congestion. The TLPS proposal has been opposed by such groups as the Wireless Internet Service Providers Association, raising questions about interference with Bluetooth and with Wi-Fi channel 11 (see 1506160037). WISPA declined to comment Friday, saying it was still reviewing the Globalstar filing.

The filing details results of a TLPS test done over the summer by Roberson and Associates at an unnamed college campus in the Chicago area. Adding TLPS channel 14 to the campus' 2.4 GHz Wi-Fi network "relieve[d] Wi-Fi congestion immediately [and] allowed for an improved experience for all users regardless of whether they remained on Channels 1, 6 and 11 or were operating on Channel 14," Globalstar said. In the testing, six of the 12 client devices were shifted from channels 1, 6 and 11 to TLPS channel 14, and the network's average throughput on a per-client-device basis increased 92 percent, Globalstar said. "There are no interference or compatibility issues between TLPS and Wi-Fi, nor with TLPS and Bluetooth operations in the 2.4 GHz ISM band," Globalstar said. The Roberson testing also found "no perceptible effect" on channel 11 from such video applications as Hulu, Skype and YouTube streaming on TLPS or on Bluetooth standard and low energy device heart monitors, mice and speakers from TLPS operations, Globalstar said.

Any TLPS network operating system would include means for operators of licensed and unlicensed services to notify the company of any possible interference even though it "firmly believes" TLPS won't have any effect on those services, Globalstar said.