Last Tuesday, AT&T put out the above press release. CNN explained the news as follows:

The pilot program will offer free Wi-Fi access to AT&T wireless and broadband customers using smartphones, laptops, and other Wi-Fi enabled devices. AT&T's Wi-Fi network is set up on the north side of Times Square on Seventh Avenue between 45th and 47th Streets.

The program is designed to see how Wi-Fi can help relieve wireless data congestion on AT&T's network. Customers with Wi-Fi-enabled devices will connect to the Wi-Fi network instead of AT&T's 3G network to access the Internet or Web-based applications.

If all goes well, AT&T said it may expand the offering to other cities.

Since Spectrum Policy Task Force days, CTIA has generally been ambivalent to hostile towards making more spectrum available to unlicensed applications. Consider, for example, their 10/23/08 letter to the Commission on the TV Whitespace docket.

At the same time, CTIA recognizes the intense interest in unlicensed TV white space opportunities. Reserving TV white space spectrum for licensed use, allocating some for unlicensed use, and reserving some for future consideration makes sense from a spectrum management perspective.

Where was CTIA in 1981-85 when the rules for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth were created? No doubt they were thinking that these unlicensed rules were of no interest to them. At least they did not oppose them as almost every mainstream spectrum user did at the time. Investment capital does not flow into radio technology unless there is some assurance that the eventual products can get not market and not get block in FCC rulemakings for years.

Also consider this alarmist comment in 2002 from Verizon about the future of unlicensed spectrum:

Even unlicensed devices are likely to be harmed by interference if they continue to proliferate without Commission regulation. Proponents of unlicensed devices support this conclusion as well. ScoreBoard recognizes the challenges and risks in the unlicensed bands from increased interference, noting "interference ultimately drives coverage, capacity, and service quality within a wireless network, and interference will grow proportionally with the increased usage of this finite spectrum resource. It notes that Wi-Fi devices utilize spread spectrum technology to help mitigate interference, but that a technical solution "is not enough by itself. As an example, it points to the deployment of unlicensed Wi-Fi devices in the 2.4 GHz band, and notes that there is a problem with interference in the band "caused by too many unlicensed devices operating within small geographical areas," and "the impact to the users of these devices is a loss or degradation of service. It also notes "individuals and businesses making investments in this unlicensed technology ... need to have reasonable certainty their investment and use will not be unreasonably disturbed by the very real potential chaos of unstructured proliferation.

In the 8 years since this was submitted to FCC, Wi-Fi has evolved from the 802.11b use of “spread spectrum technology to help mitigate interference” to the 802.11g use of OFDM that has no such immunity. (However, the new 802.11n has MIMO/“smart antenna” technology that adds a new type of interference immunity.)

We now see a mainstream CTIA member, AT&T, reaching out to the despised unlicensed technology because the 2G and 3G spectrum they helped create and their own network is unable to meet the demand. AT&T doesn’t seem to worried about “tragedy of the commons” now. It is gratifying that a mainstream carrier now sees unlicensed not as a threat, but as a complement to its own network and an integral part of our infrastructure.