Ofcom has undertaken a piece of technology foresight work in collaboration with Queen Mary University of London on the potential role of reflective surfaces in future wireless communications.
As wireless communications continue to develop and play an increasingly significant role across many sectors of the economy, we consider it important to keep abreast of technological developments to inform our future work.
Reflective surfaces are currently undergoing extensive research with early standardisation efforts. They are considered as a potential part of the next-generation wireless technology, along with repeater and relay technologies within developing standards. While we recognise that reflective surfaces may have potential benefits, it appears, on the basis of our work in this report, that further work is required by field experts to understand the regulatory implications for their deployment, especially in environments where multiple independent networks and services coexist.