Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/1423232
Report Title: Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN ® deployment synergies Issue Date: September 2019 Version: 1.0. final version 50 LoRa Alliance & Wireless Broadband Alliance Confidential & Proprietary Copyright © 2019 There is a little doubt that 5G will play a major role in our society's future. Not many people know that 5G is not just an evolution of 4G. 5G is the first version of 3GPP specifications [29] which opens the standard to any type of communication technology: mobile, wired, fixed wireless, satellite, licensed and unlicensed technologies like Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN ® . 5G, in its incredible versatility targets to provide value into many verticals [34]. Conversely, the complexity and breadth of supported use cases means that some will be suboptimal due to 5G simply being "too much." This opens the door for "right-size" technologies instead of reinventing the wheel, to support these applications and one can already see this happening in the market today. 5G main challenge is clearly leveraging millimetre wave's spectrum (> 6 Ghz) to develop broadband very high throughput services (up to 20 Gpbs!). LoRaWAN ® and Wi-Fi cover hundreds of complementary uses cases on each of the 5G market segments: enhanced Mobile Broadband, mission critical communication, and massive Internet of things. Wi-Fi has been engaging for years into 3GPP 5G specification process. Why LoRaWAN ® would not follow the same route as Wi-Fi? Just looking back as how Operators have been using Wi-Fi in combination with 4G, we have the perfect example of how 5G could leverage unlicensed technologies strong capabilities. Let us not oppose licensed and unlicensed technologies and focus on complementarity to serve any customer use case. LoRa Alliance and Wireless Broadband have here the opportunity to present a synchronized approach to 3GPP, and at least share valuable information.