Wireless Infrastructure: 5G, LTE-A and free Wi-Fi

New York requests RFPs for free citywide Wi-Fi
Service providers have until June 14 to respond to New York City’s request-for-proposals for a free, citywide Wi-Fi service. New York’ wants a “new type of telecommunications convenience to be installed on the city’s streets.” The city plans to let the Wi-Fi provider charge for phone service delivered from the hot spots, but not for Wi-Fi. New York also wants to allow advertising at the new telecom/Wi-Fi stations. The city says the winning bidder will also be able to install for-pay cellphone charging stations at the hot spots.
In return, the Wi-Fi provider will need to compensate the city to the tune of $20 million per year, which is the suggested minimum annual compensation the city is requesting. Proposals must offer New York the greater of 50% of gross revenues from the project or the guaranteed annual minimum. The city will consider proposals with guaranteed minimums as low as $17.5 million.
National September 11 Memorial Museum designed with mobile in mind
Mobilitie is the distributed antenna system provider for the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which opens to the public May 21. “Mobile is really a critical part of a visit to the [September 11] Memorial Museum,” said Marc Cima, CTO of the September 11 Memorial. “The museum will have mobile apps that can be downloaded before a visit or on site, and those mobile apps will truly enhance the mobile experience while visiting or from home. Also, it’s important that experience can be shared with family, friends or the world through social media and online communities spanning the globe.”
The DAS installed by Mobilitie is a neutral-host system, meaning that all carriers who subscribe can offer connectivity inside the museum. The system is located below the 110,000 square foot museum.
Nokia, NTT DoCoMo and National Instruments advance 5G research
Nokia and NTT DoCoMo are working together on “5G” standards research, and have built a prototype of a proof-of-concept system using National Instruments’ LabView software and NI PXI hardware. The companies said their initial focus will be on exploring the potential of the millimeter wave technology at the 70 GHz spectrum band using National Instruments’ baseband modules.
Separately, NTT DoCoMo said that beginning in late June its “extra-high speed” XiTM service will offer VoLTE voice and video calls. Video calls will be free through August
Ericsson and Telstra demonstrate downlink speeds of 450 Mbps
Ericsson is working with Australia’s Telstra on LTE-Advanced tests that have achieved live network speeds of up to 450 megabits per second. The FDD-LTE network aggregates a total of 60 megahertz of spectrum on three channels.
Tri-band carrier aggregation requires handsets that can support three bands, which is a technology smartphone manufacturers are currently working on. In the United States, tri-band smartphones will be needed to take full advantage of Sprint’s enhanced LTE network, dubbed Spark.
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