...is wrong speculating there isn't much to be done about it. While the U.S. press hasn't picked up much, there is D.C. opposition so strong it surprised me. If WISPs and others write the FCC, this could be stopped dead. The FCC can and should develop "rules of the road" to ensure continued vitality of WiFi, now routinely delivering 300-500 megabits with LOS. 

Wall Street Analyst Paul de Sa thinks the important  5GHz band can and will be protected, writing this week "We are skeptical that it will be easy to persuade regulators that this is indeed the case and think LTE-U is more likely to be deployed at scale in the new 3.5GHz band rather than at 5GHz."  (deSa is a former FCC Chief of Staff.)

There are major filings at the FCC from Microsoft, Google, Broadcom & Michael Calabrese. Michael Ha of the FCC indicated at a conference LTE-U is so controversial everyone has an opinion. 

​A Qualcomm executive chairs a crucial committee at 3GPP.

Mostly the committee makes sound technical decisions good for both companies and the public interest. But on issues like this, public and private interests differ. If 3GPP had strong public participation, LTE-U/LAA would at least be deferred until after substantial independent field tests. 

That public participation may be in sight. The U.S. and the EU have a very strong U.S. and EU commitment to "multi-stakeholderism" and open standards. Decker Anstrom, Chair of the U.S. Delegation to the major ITU World Radio Conference, and others discussed the issue at last week's State Department Advisory meeting. 

There's no U.S. government position yet, but our international leads, Ambassador Sepulveda and Larry Strickling, will look very foolish calling for "multi-stakeholder" at the ITU while doing nothing about the attempt to clobber WiFi being decided behind closed doors. 

The EU is ahead of the U.S., with "listen before talk" required. That should also be in the standard. Verizon, I'm told, is trying to block that in the United States. Good engineers are working on the problem; LTE-U/LAA standards should be deferred until we have some results. They don't belong in this years' Release 13 of LTE. 

The U.S. government is a member of 3GPP and could prevent a consensus on Release 13 if it contains widely questioned extensions into WiFi spectrum. Something as important as this should not be decided without vigorous public debate. 

The Internet Society support for U.S. State Department efforts is crucial to Ambassador Sepulveda. He almost certainly would follow the Internet Society lead if a forceful request was made. ISOC CEO Kathy Brown and policy lead Sally Wentworth speak eloquently at the ITU about the importance of public participation in governance. The WiFi spectrum issue is much more important than anything at the ITU, which at the last big meeting (Busan Plenipot) made clear they will not challenge U.S. policy. 

FCC Chairman Kennard once explained how things like this go down. "There are some people I call Black Ninjas. They work in the dark and are very, very good" 

Time to shine some sunlight here.