Liberty Global (NASDAQ:LBTYA) and CableLabs have joined the MulteFire Alliance, an independent, international member-driven consortium dedicated to developing next-generation wireless technology in shared and unlicensed spectrum.
The main focus of the MulteFire Alliance is to ensure that next-generation LTE mobile standards are compatible with shared and unlicensed spectrum. Such compatibility is intended to ensure that the next generation technology is more widely available and that it can coexist alongside WiFi and other technologies. It's also intended to serve as an alternative to the licensed spectrum, break down barriers to entry and open the door to greater innovation.
"This step will arm the cable industry with a new wireless technology that builds on our success in providing WiFi and mobile services and complements the industry's fixed broadband technology leadership," said Ralph Brown, CTO of CableLabs.
Currently, 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.
Unlike LAA, however, 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. The "standalone" functionality has been proposed in the 3GPP standards body for both LTE and 5G. By building that capability in the Alliance, its member companies hope to enable its adoption in global standards.