LTE unlicensed (LTE-U)

Long Term Evolution(LTE) is a mobile communications technology that uses various license-free frequency ranges below 1 GHz, at 1.8 GHz and 2.5 GHz. The "LTE Unlicensed" (LTE-U) variant developed by Verizon, Qualcomm and other companies and discussed by the Third Generation Partnership Project ( 3GPP) also includes the license-free 5 GHz range, which is otherwise only used by WLANs and occupied by WiFi devices.

With the cellular technology of LTE-U, the data rate of mobile networks can be significantly increased over short distances, and without the integration of a WLAN. All the user data flows over the license-free frequency bands. Since cellular mobile technologies normally transmit in frequency ranges that require licenses, LTE-U shares the frequency range with WLANs, which can lead to mutual interference and increasing potential for interference. The coexistence of the two technologies, mobile and WLAN, in the same license-free frequency ranges requires rudimentary mechanisms to prevent mutual interference.

Other methods that use license-free frequency ranges are LTE-WLAN Aggregation( LWA), Licensed Assisted Access( LAA) and MulteFire.