CBRS

CBRS Alliance founding members Nokia and Federated Wireless said they’re working together on an LTE technology for the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service band. Nokia will provide indoor and outdoor CBRS small cells through its Flexi Zone solution, and shared-spectrum company Federated is offering a cloud-based spectrum controller giving operators a “cost-effective and dynamic option for accessing this new spectrum,” the companies said in a Friday news release. “The CBRS 3.5 GHz band provides much needed spectrum to meet the rapidly growing demand for wireless network capacity, while addressing potential interference and coordination issues with new spectrum sharing and management techniques. Operators have taken notice, and several US operators have escalated their plans to trial the new technology as they continue to densify their mobile networks and prepare for 5G.”

The FCC moved another step closer to opening the 3.5 GHz band for shared use, conditionally approving seven companies to be the first spectrum access system (SAS) operators, a key next step. The agency labeled the band the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) and it has been a major focus of the agency since 2012 (see 1212130044). But industry officials say many questions remain about the viability of the CBRS. Among them is what some see as the likelihood the FCC’s top engineer, Julius Knapp, will soon depart, leaving no clear successor.

Federated Wireless said it demo'd interoperability between its spectrum access system and an SAS developed by Alphabet’s Access team. Federated said the demonstration shows the workability of the FCC’s shared spectrum regime in the 3.5 GHz band. The agency labeled the band the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). “Federated Wireless and Alphabet’s Access team demonstrated operational interoperability for their independently developed SASs, which illustrates a necessary step for industry readiness to launch a commercial shared spectrum service while validating the SAS-to-SAS interface protocol defined by the Wireless Innovation Forum,” said a Thursday Federated news release. “This is a requirement for a multi-SAS administered CBRS band that could enable higher data rate LTE access for mobile devices nationwide.” Sepehr Mehrabanzad, Federated senior vice president-engineering, said “all required building blocks are coming together effectively as demonstrated today and further indication of our readiness towards commercialization of a shared spectrum solution.”

The Wireless Innovation Forum said its members approved its Spectrum Sharing Committee’s signaling protocols and procedures to be used in the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band for spectrum access systems -- and spectrum access system (SAS) interfaces. “These standards are the first of their kind addressing the new FCC Part 96 rules for CBRS. Publication of these standards represents a major milestone for enabling U.S. commercialization of the band,” the Winn Forum said in a Tuesday news release. Elements include SAS-SAS prerequisites, SAS-SAS procedures, SAS-SAS synchronization, message encoding and transport and parameters of SAS-SAS messages, the forum said. The new administration is expected by some to make changes to the rules for the 3.5 GHz band (see 1611180037).

While Comcast and Charter Communications move toward launching mobile offerings, wireless and cable experts and observers are mixed on whether other operators will follow suit, with some seeing the possibility of smaller operators collectively creating a mobile network. Meanwhile, those major operators likely will feel pressure quickly to divert as much traffic as possible from a wireless carrier's mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), which could mean either big cable ISP investments in their own back ends or acquisitions of wireless companies themselves, we were told.

Twelve companies, including AT&T and Ericsson, joined the Citizens Broadband Radio Service Alliance, it said Thursday in a news release. Other new members are Accelleran, Airspan Networks, American Tower, Baicells, CableLabs, ExteNet Systems, Nsight, Ranzure Networks, Rise Broadband and ZTE. The CBRS Alliance was launched in August as the FCC moves closer to opening the 3.5 GHz shared band. “For LTE-based solutions in the shared CBRS band to be successful, we need a wide range of ecosystem partners, infrastructure, equipment and network providers, to work together closely,” said Michael Peeters of Nokia, president of the alliance. “CBRS enables new kinds of deployments and business models, from LTE-based neutral hosts that can serve multiple service providers, to dedicated networks serving various entities such as enterprises or IoT verticals,” said Neville Meijers of Qualcomm Technologies, alliance chairman.

CableLabs joined the CBRS Alliance and its effort to "evangelize LTE-based citizens [broadband radio service] technology, use cases and business opportunities," the organization said in a blog post Monday. CableLabs said the alliance also is working on a product certification program for LTE equipment in the 3.5 GHz band. It said its Kyrio subsidiary will look at expanding its testing services to support CBRS. According to the alliance website, other members include Alphabet, Intel, Nokia and Qualcomm. CableLabs earlier this month joined the MulteFire Alliance consortium, which is focused on LTE mobile standards (see 1609210009).

Six wireless technology companies launched the CBRS Alliance to “develop, market and promote LTE-based solutions” in the new 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service band, they said Tuesday. The six companies are Access Technologies, Federated Wireless, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ruckus Wireless. “In February, the companies announced their commitment to build an ecosystem of industry participants and make LTE-based solutions in the CBRS band widely available,” said an alliance news release. “The Alliance will work towards LTE CBRS field trials in the second half of this year and is developing an official certification process towards successful deployments of CBRS infrastructure.” The FCC approved an experimental three-tiered access and sharing model made up of federal and nonfederal incumbents, priority access licenses and general authorized access users for the shared band (see 1608120057). The FCC still must approve the first spectrum access system administrators and environmental sensing capability operators that will make the complex sharing arrangement work.

Siemens and Federated Wireless unveiled a partnership Tuesday to develop shared spectrum solutions for the 3.5 GHz citizens broadband radio service band. The partnership will make Siemens one of the first companies to use a spectrum access system and environmental sensing capability being developed by Federated, the companies said in a news release. Both must still be approved by the FCC. “Siemens is dedicated to serving all of its critical infrastructure customer segments by ensuring early compliance with the new FCC CBRS rules,” said Jeremy Bryant, Siemens business segment manager. Siemens already offers broadband products that use the 3.65 GHz band, which are required to transition to the new CBRS rules, the companies said. “During the transition period to the new CBRS rules, existing users will also receive protection from radio frequency interference due to the new users of the band if they register their sites with the CBRS database administrator and secure a protection zone for their grandfathered operations.”

The outlook for the 3.5 GHz band, and whether it will attract carrier interest, remain unclear more than three years after the FCC approved the initial rulemaking notice in December 2012 (see 1604280062). Some industry lawyers say carriers are unlikely to play an active role in the band mainly because of the limits placed on the priority access licenses (PALs) to be sold by the FCC as one part of the experiment in sharing. But other observers predict a more positive outcome given the number of carriers that have taken part in the Wireless Innovation Forum’s work on the band.