Global wireless alliances join forces to drive innovation

The Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) and Dynamic Spectrum Alliance have joined forces in a strategic partnership that would see them collaborating in an initiative with industry leading organisations.

This collaboration aims to drive innovation in unlicensed spectrum, said WBA.

This is critical as the past two decades have seen a steady, exponential growth in different technologies, and how radio technologies have made strides in venturing in unlicensed spectrum, and adopting platforms such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and ZigBee.

The organisations noted how “Access to unlicensed bands has enabled innovation and business deployment by entities ranging from the world’s largest companies to the smallest of startups”.

The said this partnership would see them “working together to promote and support the development of unlicensed wireless technologies, including TV white space”.

The partnership would see the two organisations work together to expand the available spectrum in the wireless broadband sphere and look at “co-developing guidelines with the aim of ensuring interoperability within the ecosystem and promoting the usage of unlicensed wireless technologies at both the technical and regulatory level”.

H Nwana, Dynamic Spectrum Alliance Executive Director said: “The Wi-Fi ecosystem is invaluable to connecting the next four billion consumers in emerging markets”.

WBA CEO Shrikant Shenwai said: “The growing appetite for data, both for consumer use and, increasingly, in voice and IoT deployments, means that innovative solutions need to be explored to maximize the efficiency of wireless spectrum use. The combination of Wi-Fi and other unlicensed wireless technologies require effective spectrum utilization to provide the oxygen of future innovation”.

The two organisations showcased their collaborative work this week at WBA’s Wi-Fi Global Congress in San Jose, and would be presenting their work at DSA’s Global Summit next year, which would take place from April 26 – 26.

WBA, Shenwai said, is focused on “driving next generation Wi-Fi and its role in Public Wi-Fi services, Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, Converged Services, Smart Cities and 5G, and the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance, the global organisation advocating laws and regulation that would lead to more efficient and effective spectrum utilisation”.