CBRS

CTIA and other industry players sought to keep pressure on the Biden administration to make more mid-band spectrum available for 5G and eventually 6G in comments on the implementation plan for the national spectrum strategy. Others stressed the importance of spectrum sharing. NTIA has not yet posted the comments, which were due Wednesday.

The World Radiocommunication Conference was a success for the U.S., Charles Cooper, NTIA Office of Spectrum Management associate administrator, assured the Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee at its meeting Tuesday. CSMAC approved unanimously three reports, on the citizens broadband radio service band, 6G (see 2312180052) and electromagnetic compatibility improvements. While this meeting was the last under CSMAC’s current term, NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson said the group will be rechartered.

NTIA's Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee is expected to vote Tuesday on a report that largely endorses the sometimes controversial approach to spectrum sharing used in the citizens broadband radio service band. Yet it also calls for improvements in how the CBRS model works. In addition, CSMAC will vote on a report from its 6G Subcommittee during a busy end-of-year meeting.

Samsung Electronics America told an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel that approval of its request for waiver for a 5G base station radio working across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see [Ref:2309130041) is important to 5G deployment in the U.S. “Additional delay in granting the Petition will hold up deployment in both the 3.7 GHz and CBRS bands,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 23-93. “The waiver advances the public interest by affording 5G network operators access to an innovative, efficient, and cost-effective base station that is smaller and has greater functionality than separate, standalone CBRS and 3.7 GHz band radios,” the company said. Samsung noted it’s a proponent of CBRS as a “major CBRS vendor” including to cable operators like Comcast for its Philadelphia CBRS deployment and “broke new ground by offering the first phone with CBRS” in the U.S.: “Simply put, Samsung would not develop or deploy a multiband radio that would intentionally cause interference to its own or anyone else’s CBRS radios.”

The citizens broadband radio service is in its early days, but in 20 years or so it will be as mature as Wi-Fi is today, with a similar ecosystem, Jim Jacobellis, senior vice president at private network company Alef, said Monday during a Dense Networks webinar. “You’re going to see CBRS networks in most any city or county that has some level of communications capability,” he said. That will happen in the next five-10 years. "It’s just a matter of when and how they get there," Jacobellis said. The question is where both Wi-Fi and cellular are “not good enough,” he said: “That’s where private LTE and private cellular can come in and save the day thanks to the recent availability of the CBRS band.” In the U.S., CBRS is “the innovation band,” said Jamaal Smith, vice president-sales at managed-service provider Kajeet. “It allows municipalities, universities, to do things that they might not have been able to do with traditional cellular or with Wi-Fi,” he said. Added Eric Toenjes, national market manager-wireless solution at Graybar, CBRS is “in the early stages of adoption,” though some players “are going all in.” Graybar is a distributor of communications and other solutions. Some users are working with companies like Kajeet while others are developing networks on their own, he said.

The citizens broadband radio service spectrum-sharing model is easily adoptable by other nations, but there needs to be more work proselytizing about it internationally, spectrum experts said Tuesday at a CBRS seminar by New America's Open Technology Institute about spectrum sharing in private wireless networks. CBRS is a route for regulators and agencies like NTIA to work with overseas counterparts on pushing sharing models, said Scott Harris, NTIA senior spectrum adviser. He said the U.S. needs to boost such international engagement and the private sector needs to encourage regulators overseas to have those conversations.

CTIA and Google officials clashed Tuesday on the future of spectrum sharing and the citizens broadband radio service band, speaking during a Broadband Breakfast webinar on spectrum sharing. Other speakers said CBRS has been a success.

5G is growing in Europe, but the region is falling behind parts of the Americas and Asia, a GSMA official said during a Mobile World Live webinar Monday. Europe is “lagging in terms of customers willing to upgrade to 5G,” said Radhika Gupta, GSMA Intelligence head-data acquisition.

The FCC certified Red Technologies to join the ranks of spectrum access system administrators in the citizens broadband radio service band for a five-year period. The Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology also approved Red to support spectrum manager leasing for priority access licenses and to use Key Bridge’s environmental sensing capability to protect federal operations in the 3.55-3.65 GHz portion of the band. The approval was made in consultation with NTIA and DOD, the Friday notice said.

NTIA told the FCC it has a “temporary arrangement” with the Navy that will allow use of the citizens broadband radio service in the 3550-3650 MHz band before environmental sensing capability sensors are locally deployed. “Under this arrangement, the Navy will retain continuous access to three 10-megahertz channels in the 3550-3650 MHz band in and around Hawaii, leaving seven-10 megahertz channels available for CBRS use,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 15-319. The Navy “will retain priority rights to the remainder of the 3550-3650 MHz band on an ‘as needed’ basis,” NTIA said.