Wi-Fi signals are everywhere – in a lot of homes and in locations such as restaurants, coffee hours, public parks and more. Microsoft even once put in a Wi-Fi hotspot inside a magazine to promote Office 365. In fact, Wi-Fi is used to carry Internet traffic more than any other method in the U.S. However, there are concerns that the U.S. may run out of the unlicensed airware space that Wi-Fi currently uses. A newly announced organization called WiFiForward wants to promote a way to free up this upcoming bottleneck.
Microsoft and Google, who are normally fierce business rivals, are among the companies that have teamed up to form WiFiForward. The group states:
Recent analyses indicate that Wi-Fi in our homes, businesses, schools and libraries is becoming congested by a deluge of data from more devices, applications and services connecting to the Internet without wires. Indeed, Cisco predicts that by 2017, Wi-Fi will handle a majority of all data consumers’ access from the Internet.
The group wants to get the Federal Communications Commission to allow for W-Fi signals to be used in other parts of the spectrum, including "in an auction of TV spectrum, in a proceeding to open the 3.5 GHz spectrum for wireless broadband, and in an ongoing proceeding in the 5 GHz band."
Other businesses that have joined WiFiForward include several cable companies like Time Warner, Comcast, Charter and Best Buy; groups such as the Consumer Electronics Association and the American Library Association have also joined the cause.
Source: WIFiForward | Image via WiFiFoward