America’s inventive spirit at its finest’ – CBRS model must be extended, says industry

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

Twenty-six organizations and alliances in the US with active interests in private and shared cellular for enterprise usage have jointly written to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) to hail the “success” of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrumsharing model, to date, and to press for “new spectrum options” to further “power the 5G economy”.

The letter – addressed to FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel and NTIA administrator Alan Davidson, and seen by Enterprise IoT Insights – states that over 285,000 CBRS base station devices are now live on CBRS airwaves, at 3.55-3.7 GHz in the US. The total has been reached in just three years, they declare, since the FCC opened the band for shared and private cellular usage – and compares with 69,543 new radio deployments by public mobile operators in the same period, and 418,887 in the “entire 40-year history” of public cellular in the US.

In other words, new CBRS cell sites are going-in three times (300 percent) faster than the rate of public network expansion. The numbers also undermine any kind of shaky counter-argument that public cellular is an upgrade exercise, originally, on the grounds the three-year CBRS count is two thirds (69 percent) of the 40-year total for commercial cellular – even if it is, so far, an apple-and-orange measures of (mostly) 4G micro and 5G macro cells.

The signatories are mostly CBRS familiars from the telecoms space, such as Airspan Networks, Amazon, Celona, Charter Communications, Comcast, Cox Communications, Federated Wireless, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Mavenir Systems, Motorola Solutions, and Pollen Mobile. A handful of parties with more traditional ‘vertical’ interests have also signed, notably agricultural giant Deere & Company and real estate firm JBG SMITH Properties.

The education sector (blurring with the healthcare and the municipal realm) is also represented, by the American Library Association, the Purdue Research Foundation, and the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB). The letter states that the whole of US industry “support[s] an inclusive approach to spectrum policy”; it recites use cases for CBRS networks variously in manufacturing, farming, logistics, education, and healthcare.

This gang of CBRS champs also urge the FCC and NTIA to follow the CBRS model for future spectrum releases, on the grounds that it is efficient. In total, 228 organizations have won priority-access (PAL) licenses at auction, which is “almost 10 times the number of winning bidders in the exclusive-use 3.45 GHz band”, the letter states. The general-access (GAA) portion of the CBRS band hosts nearly 900 different users, across many sectors, it says.

The CBRS model has made the US appear progressive, and worth following, the letter declares. It suggests Brazil, Germany, France, Japan, Sweden, and the UK have all followed the US lead with mid-band ‘vertical’ spectrum. “The US has shown the world,” they write. “In light of other countries’ moves toward greater spectrum sharing, the US should extend its leadership by nurturing and growing CBRS.”

The letter concludes: “The CBRS allocation has fulfilled its promise as the ‘innovation band’ in an incredibly short period of time. The framework should be advanced for futurespectrum allocations, including in the lower 3 GHz band, to enable greater competition, innovation, efficiency and American leadership. Thank you for continuing to support a spectrum policy that demonstrates America’s inventive spirit at its finest.”

Last month, Kelly Hill, executive editor at RCR Wireless, summed up: “Conversations on spectrum policy are shifting focus to renewing the pipeline of airwaves under consideration for future use, both for 5G and as-yet-unstandardized 6G systems.” Federal agencies are also reconsidering how to shape the spectrum pipeline, wrote Hill, and where spectrum sharing may help to “bolster commercial spectrum access”.

Hill quoted the NTIA at a panel discussion at the Spectrum Policy Symposium in Washington D.C. “There are not a lot of easy bands left, if any, and we need better tools to be able to innovate our way through it,” said the NTIA. A report from Coleago Consulting, from July last year, said average urban needs for mid-band spectrum (around 1.5-7.125 GHz) would be over 2,000 megahertz by 2025-2030, and as high as 3,690 megahertz in rich cities.

The same article also cited a study by Analysys Mason, commissioned by CTIA, which ranked the U.S. ahead of 15 global markets for licensed low-band and unlicensed mid-band provisions, but eleventh of 15 for licensed mid-band spectrum availability.

Meanwhile, the FCC has launched an inquiry into the use of up to 550 megahertz of spectrum at 12.7-13.25 GHz. The 12-13 GHz range falls into the “high midband”. The FCC has said it is “ideally suited for mobile broadband use as it is already allocated for terrestrial mobile services on a primary basis domestically.” It has extended an existing freeze on new operations in the band.