The movie ‘Current war’ is a historical drama about the fierce competition between AC and DC technologies over the nationwide electrical grid standard. We all know how it ends without watching the movie, for all of our power outlets on the wall are AC – and AC did win due to its economic advantage. In recent years, however, DC outlets have been added to the power outlets in the form of USB plug with the spread of portable IT devices.
Similar ‘war’ are taking place in the wireless network infra of production line between WiFi and Cellular technology with the current spread of enterprise digitalization. While wireless technology experts can make decision per use case by comparing the strengths and weaknesses, investors have more difficult decision process since they have to consider other factors as well.
In such cases, a better answer can actually be BOTH. Utilizing the IETF standard technologies such as Multipath-TCP combined with 3GPP ATSSS we can come up with a hybrid solution. Such solution can improve wireless network performance and reliability at the same time. Recent AGV use case is a good example of how such solution can be a practical solution supporting seamless handoff between the two connectivities.
Any comments?