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.
NTIA’s Commerce Spectrum Management Advisory Committee will hold its final meeting of the year Dec. 19, according to a notice for Friday’s Federal Register. CSMAC last met in September (see 2309210043). The group is focused on topics including 6G and the citizens broadband radio service band. The 2 p.m. meeting will be held at the NCTA, 25 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Suite 100, Washington, D.C.
When trying to gauge how fully utilized nonfederal spectrum is, no commercial-use band should be off limits, multiple trade groups said Friday in FCC docket 23-232 reply comments. Numerous comments argued that the fact that a band is licensed for exclusive use doesn't mean it's automatically being used to maximum efficiency. Commissioners unanimously approved the spectrum usage notice of inquiry at their August meeting (see 2308030075).
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.
An Information Technology and Innovation Foundation report, released Monday, calls on the federal policymakers to develop policies that consider tradeoffs of licensed, unlicensed and shared spectrum, and make allocations for the right reasons. “Licensed spectrum is good for providing the certainty needed to sustain wireless applications that require large, sustained investments,” but revenue from license auctions should be seen as “a side effect, not a goal in itself,” the report said. Spectrum auctions can generate lots of revenue, but “it is the market mechanism (including tradability on secondary markets) and the type of rights embodied by an exclusive license that make it a productive allocation,” it said. Unlicensed spectrum, “is a good way to prevent usage rights from becoming too fragmented,” but claims of congestion shouldn’t justify making more available, ITIF said: “One commonly cited claim is that unlicensed spectrum’s uses are important and valuable, and therefore more bandwidth should be freed up to ensure more reliable access to it. The problem with this argument is that licensed spectrum exists precisely for those who can’t operate under the uncertainties associated with unlicensed spectrum.” Spectrum sharing has become increasingly necessary as spectrum becomes more congested, ITIF said. Dynamic sharing “could even become the first-best allocation if technological advances enable a generalized use-or-share framework” and “there can be little objection, from a policy perspective, to allowing additional uses of a licensed band that does not cause harmful interference to the licensee,” the report said. But there are also limitations, ITIF said, noting power levels permitted in the citizens broadband radio service band are “327 times lower than those in the exclusively licensed band just above it.”
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.
Getting Congress to restore the FCC’s spectrum auction authority as quickly as possible is a top priority of the Competitive Carriers Association, CCA President Tim Donovan said Wednesday at the start of the group’s annual conference in Atlanta. Donovan also urged launching a 5G Fund, the topic of a September Further NPRM (see 2309210035).
Commenters disagreed sharply on what the FCC should do in response to an August notice of inquiry on understanding nonfederal spectrum use. Some observers have questioned how much will be gained by the inquiry, especially because it doesn’t ask about federal use (see 2308020054). Comments were posted Wednesday in docket 23-232.