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Soon You'll Be Able To Build Your Own 4G Network Over Wi-Fi Frequencies (hpe.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the wi-fi-DIY dept.

Long-time Slashdot reader Esther Schindler writes: An industry consortium called MulteFire wants to help you build your own LTE-like network that uses the Wi-Fi spectrum, with no need for carriers or providers, writes Andy Patrizio. Just don't expect to get started today. "In its basic specification, MulteFire Release 1.0 defines an LTE-like network that can run entirely on unlicensed spectrum frequencies. The alliance didn't try to do too much with the 1.0 spec; it simply wanted to get it out the door so partners and manufacturers could begin adoption. For 1.0, the alliance focused on the 5-GHz band. More functionality and more spectrums will be supported in future specs." Why would you want it? As Patrzio explains, MulteFire's target audience is fairly obvious: anyone who needs speed, scalability, and security beyond what Wi-Fi offers. "MulteFire is enabling cellular technologies to run in unassigned spectrum, where they are free to use it so long as they follow the rules of the spectrum band," says Mazen Chmaytelli, president of the MulteFire Alliance." Is this something you think would make a difference?
The alliance includes Qualcomm and Cisco Systems, and the article points out some advantages. LTE cell towers "can be miles apart versus Wi-Fi's range of just a few feet. Plus, LTE's security has never been breached, as far as we know."

52 comments

  1. Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Then I can get subscribers, overcharge them, treat them like crap and they'll say, "Thank you sir! May I have another!"

    I'll myself AP&P or Borizon or C-Mobile or something.

    Our motto: "Fuck the customer!"

    And if any employee doesn't like it, well, it won't matter because we're still gonna offshore/outsource your job to H1-bs!!!

    It's good to be (corporate) King!

    1. Re:Sweet! by JustOK · · Score: 1

      I sense ... an annoyance towards ... something.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    2. Re:Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My first reaction was akin to his: Not too happy for commercial parties, telcos to boot, to shoehorn in and make money with free, shared spectrum. If they're not paying for the spectrum, let them offer the service free of charge. Since that's not going to happen, I say: Let them buy the spectrum if they're gonna charge the customer. No freeloading for telcos, thanks.

    3. Re:Sweet! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Except that since this spectrum is free for anyone to use, you will actually have real competition.

    4. Re: Sweet! by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      This proposal appears to be an attempt to change that; but the original LTE-in-ISM-bands spec has a really nasty, though admittedly rather clever, trick: this"LTE-U" moves some or all of the data channel into unlicensed spectrum; but the spec mandates that the control channel be in a licensed band. Probably not entirely without technical reason(a control channel subject to fewer sources of interference is likely more reliable and predictable); but means that only someone who controls at least some licensed spectrum can play; while the bulk of the noise produced lands right in the unlicensed bands. As originally specified, running the control channel in ISM was not an option, period, which made it look an awful lot like a deliberate move to lock out smaller players. This spec, while immature, attempts to at least let you try to run an all-ISM implementation.

  2. uh... stingray breaks LTE security constantly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    i'm sure the cell tower owners would argue that their cell towers were not technically compromised.... but those cell towers are only there to serve users who were forced to trust the towers.... that trust is part of the security... that trust is what was compromised by spoof towers to extract end user information.

    LTE security has obviously and admittedly been breached.

    1. Re: uh... stingray breaks LTE security constantly by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 1

      Also, has WiFi security been breached since the bad old days of WEP? That was a disaster, no arguing otherwise(though earlier cellular standards are also a mess); but it was my understanding that WPA2 only gets 'breached' because they include the consumer-friendly PSK option and a lot of lousy passwords are used; while PSK with good passwords, or the annoying-to-set-up, but actually robust, 'enterprise' flavors have been pretty solid. Telcos deserve credit for being one of the few network environments where cryptographic smart card authentication is actually routine(SIMs haven't mechanically been smartcards in ages; but logically and electrically they are); but wifi security if you actually care is quite robust, it's just that the spec includes options intended to be trivial to set up.

  3. then the WIFI allergy astroturfers will come back by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    remember back when it looked like local homebrew wifi networks might cut the big boys out of the action? All of a sudden there were all sorts of news stories about people with wifi allergies...then once the talk of these wifi networks went away, so did the wifi allergies...I predict that when the new tech that will cut out the big boys does finally come around, the wifi allergy news stories will suddenly re-emerge....

  4. No, you wont by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    This is LTE LAA/LTE Advance. The carriers -of course- did think of that, they dont like competition. *They* can run 4G on ISM frequencys, but you can't, because the phone will only use them after connecting on the licensed spectrum...

    1. Re:No, you wont by squiggleslash · · Score: 2

      Apparently not, see first and second FAQ answers. Sounds interesting, it'll be interesting to see how well it works and how cheap the hardware would be. The major issue will be legacy devices that only support Wifi.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  5. Re:The Donald by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You would know, deplorable.

  6. Re:then the WIFI allergy astroturfers will come ba by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    so, be ready for it next time.... create your own spin stories with "scientists" who can "prove" that the allergy is not caused by the WiFi signal, but is instead caused by the interference between WiFi and the big boys monster goliath signal. get a scientist to claim there is no other reason for certain aspects of the big boys protocols other than to stimulate these allergic reactions when it reacts with competition.

    WiFi is the safe, local, healthy option. the big boys are giving us all a rash on purpose. we can prove it! look, people who lived in a city and got the rash and then moved to isolation with 10 WiFi networks, and they're fine. scientists... so many scientists.

    you're all idiots.

  7. It's a good thing by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2

    ... that existing 5Ghz wifi bands never get congested or oversubscribed, amirite?

    --
    #DeleteChrome
    1. Re: It's a good thing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And that metal filing cabinets and bookshelves don't exist

  8. Fuck these guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These assholes won't be happy until every bit of unlicensed spectrum is so overcrowded that the only solution is to pay for managed spectrum.
    Hey! Guess what we sell!

  9. umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    LTE can go for miles because of signal strength, not because it's LTE. If you're using unlicensed wifi spectrum you'll also have to broadcast at a watt or less.

    1. Re:umm... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A watt? How much power do you think an average cellphone puts out? (Clue: the absolute maximum is usually a watt or two, and usually they transmit at a tiny fraction of that.)

    2. Re: umm... by Brockmire · · Score: 2

      An LTE base station has WAY better transmitter and receiver than the clients. They also use high gain antennas. We're talking multiple watts vs the clients.

  10. Give us more spectrum! by SuricouRaven · · Score: 1

    How hard can it be to get the ITU and all major world governments to agree... ooh, right.

  11. Not a good Neighbour by Brockmire · · Score: 1

    How can a protocol designed for exclusive use of spectrum follow the rules of 5Ghz? That fucks over both the LTE and WiFi since it's a shared spectrum. Nobody needs scalability in their homes. This is a very dumb idea.

    1. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shhh you'll scare off the venture capitalists.

    2. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Since when has logic ever changed the mind of a VC?

    3. Re:Not a good Neighbour by FrankHaynes · · Score: 1

      Interference to the carriers' uplinks is a constant problem. You'd be amazed at the unlikely sources of garbage that generate spurious RF energy and apparently LTE needs pristine spectrum to work.

      Still, WiFi is not designed for streaming data so good luck getting this to work at an acceptable level for John Q. Schmoe.

      --
      slashdot: A failed experiment.
    4. Re:Not a good Neighbour by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wifi also needs exclusive spectrum to work properly: try setting two APs to the same frequency and putting them side by side. Most people get a serious reduction in Wifi throughput, of the order of 50-90%, if their neighbor has an AP on the same frequency, and that's despite walls and others obstacles reducing the competing AP's signal to a level that you can't connect to it directly.

      LTE and Wifi both use OFDM which is an air interface technology that tolerates a certain amount of noise. So it's unlikely LTE will be unusable in situations where Wifi is usable.

      I don't see this as a problem. I'm more concerned that this isn't what the summary says it is: being able to independently implement LTE sounds good to me, but IIRC the major push is for LTE that requires a combination of licensed and unlicensed spectrum, rather than exclusively unlicensed. If they're also working on the latter, then awesome, it'd be nice to see how well an alternative to Wifi works, and something whose security is based upon physical SIM cards rather than passwords could be a big improvement, in theory.

      --
      You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
    5. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      apparently LTE needs pristine spectrum to work

      A protocol designed to freq hop find empty unused areas and time slice with state of the art noise reduction built in needs pristine network to work. Pull the other one please. Do go on with your random speculation and half truths.

    6. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      English, please.

    7. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      You don't know what the fuck you are talking about. In WiFi, it's listen before talking, so you talk when someone else isn't. This is sharing the spectrum. The more an AP is active, the less available talk time for everyone. You have issues with noise and retries due to hidden node, where a client doesn't know another client is transmitting. Plugging in an AP on the same channel but not actively used would impact very little (a few microseconds every ~100ms). Plugging in an LTE bae station on same frequency without any users would have much more nasty effect. LTE uses 100% of airtime, splitting up downstream and upstream transmission slots. It's efficiency comes from scheduling ahead of time when all the clients can transmit. It doesn't handle ACKS (ARQ) the same as WiFi. You are confused.

    8. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. It's the same problem of ethernet and why we went to switches. Two nodes can listen, find silence, and then both start transmitting at the same time. This causes all sorts of problems. Worse, two limited cross talk is also possible.

      Basically you just claimed there exists no reason to use switches. We should all be using hubs.

      Bullshit.

    9. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ethernet and Wireless are not the same medium. Ethernet assumes a perfect (enough) channel, where all nodes on a segment can see all other nodes transmissions, always. In wireless it is extremely common for node A to hear node C's transmissions but node B cannot.

      It's also common that node A can hear node B's transmission while node B cannot hear node A's transmission. As an analogy, that actually happend to me, of this problem: I was up a ladder next to a breakout cabinet full of ethernet switches, the guy on the ground could easily hear me talking, so would reply in a quiet voice; I couldn't hear anything he was saying due to the noise from the fans in the switches. The same thing happens with Wifi, the transmitting node can think it's quiet while the receiving node can't hear squat because of on-channel interference that's closer to the receiver than the transmitter.

    10. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been to cities where literally the entire city is blanketed by typical normal metro wifi but also had two commercial wifi operators that you could buy passes from and get a connection good enough for video.

      My phone barely worked until I enabled japanese freqs though

    11. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stick a certificate in a chip and do your WPA2 Enterprise through that.

      This is existing technology, and "only" requires cleaning up the utter mess that is 802.1x client software.

    12. Re:Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't want good security, they want to erase privacy associated with WiFi.

    13. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      You don't know what the fuck you are talking about. WiFi is like a hub, not Ethernet switch. Going to dual AP on two frequencies would be the Ethernet switch equivalent. A switch with 4 ports could have two independent, simultaneous conversations between 4 parties. Single AP WiFi cannot. Minimizing hidden node problem is as simple as using RTS/CTS at trade off of increased overhead. 11ac wave2 is a better step than LTE.

    14. Re: Not a good Neighbour by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      LTE employs Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing modulation, or spread spectrum on steroids. It thrives on multipath transmission and reflections. OFDM is also employed in IEEE802.2 WiFi, though there with the refinement of (MU-)MIMO.

      This is about as battle hardened as modulation schemes get these days.

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthogonal_frequency-division_multiplexing

  12. Sounds like a crap idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    There is a maximum transmission power allowed which differs per country but is typically low power, for short range usage. Anything higher and you need a license. Yeah I read the article and whilst security is a topic they tout range and bandwidth too. Just on those topics what is the fucking point, especially when it will be low power, when we already have wifi for this purpose.

    You'll still need normal wifi to support all your gadgets that don't adopt this betamax idea, meaning more wifi congestion on your home network. So zero fucks given here. On security, the neighbours are well out of wifi range, so don't care!

  13. signs LTE is a flawed, closed standard with legacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    802.11 is an open IEEE standard. LTE is a flawed, closed standard with legacy parts. 802.11 probably has better security, because it has been more publicly attacked.

  14. Bit of disinformation going on here. by Computershack · · Score: 2
    LTE cell towers "can be miles apart versus Wi-Fi's range of just a few feet.

    A friend of mine uses a trunk radio system with linked sites utilising 5GHz wifi (Ubiquity gear for those interested) for the inter site control channel data link. The sites are over 40 miles apart. Of course LTE sites can be miles apart if you're putting them on a tower and the range would be greater than a wifi router in your house because at those frequencies communications effectively works on clear line of sight. Put those LTE transmitters in your house and the range would be no different than regular wifi.

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    1. Re:Bit of disinformation going on here. by dohzer · · Score: 1

      One, two, skip a few, 100ft. I guess that's still just a few.

    2. Re:Bit of disinformation going on here. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know you're on to something when someone educated starts making up stupid lies about why you're wrong.

    3. Re:Bit of disinformation going on here. by hankwang · · Score: 1

      A bit of apples and oranges. Wifi is restricted to max 20 mW or so with an omnidirectional antenna, less if you use a directional antenna. Telecom uses higher power (250 mW on the phone from a quick Google) and uses high-gain directional antennas at the cell tower. You would't be allowed to use such high powers in the unlicensed wifi band.

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    4. Re:Bit of disinformation going on here. by pak9rabid · · Score: 1

      Wifi is restricted to max 20 mW or so with an omnidirectional antenna, less if you use a directional antenna.

      Well that's just simply untrue.

    5. Re:Bit of disinformation going on here. by kiminator · · Score: 1

      Here are the actual power limits from the FCC, as of 2015. It's a little complicated, but overall 1W is the maximum output power allowed for Wi-Fi.

      Either way, my bet is that the range of this technology would be quite short, far shorter than current cellular networks which operate at lower frequencies (meaning less attenuation) at at higher powers.

  15. It's not like 4G is inherently better by Casandro · · Score: 1

    It's larger cells mostly come from being able to use higher powers. That advantage will disappear for unlicensed cells.

    It's probably even less secure as its more complex. The focus was more on protecting business models than protecting user data.

  16. Bound to happen at some point by Maritz · · Score: 1

    You'd imagine at some point some kind of peer-to-peer ad-hoc internet will spring up as a response to government authoritarianism. The Tory dickheads in the UK, for example, couldn't be more proud of their plan to introduce a series of consumer-hostile laws that China would be legitimately jealous of. Of course they'll 'outlaw' any such tech, but depending on the details it might not be that easy. Pirate radio stations exist with impunity.

    --
    I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
  17. WiMax by maelkum · · Score: 1

    Honest question here. Wasn't WiMax the "long range WiFi" thing?

    1. Re: WiMax by Brockmire · · Score: 1

      For ptp links, Wimax doesn't make sense. For long distance, Wimax in theory is better than WiFi as it's more efficient. WiFi would increase overhead due to more client collisions, whereas in Wimax there would be minimal collisions. Problem is, Wimax needs dedicated spectrum and gets killed if used on WiFi bands.

    2. Re: WiMax by maelkum · · Score: 1

      I see. Thanks!

  18. MulletFire by trevc · · Score: 1

    Sounds outdated to me.

  19. Wow by Miser · · Score: 1

    Like 2.4ghz isn't crowded enough, and you want to start polluting 5ghz?

    Do. Not. Want.