CBRS Sharing a Success Story: Federated

Federated Wireless defended advanced sharing technologies in a meeting with FCC International Bureau staff. Federated offered “an overview of the successes of the Citizens Broadband Radio Service spectrum sharing model, including its effective protection of different types of incumbent systems as well as the innovation and competition it has stimulated and the new entrants it has brought to the market,” said a filing Thursday in docket 19-348. New entrants “are using the band to develop their own private networks for uses such as industrial automation, smart inventory management, and predictive maintenance, in environments ranging from warehouses, factories, farms, school campuses, and office buildings, in rural as well as densely populated areas,” Federated said. CTIA raised questions about CBRS as the optimal model for spectrum allocation, saying it’s inferior to exclusive use licensing and questioning how successful the CBRS experiment has been (see 2212120050). In less than three years, “nearly 300,000 CBRS devices have been deployed nationwide, a record number of users have adopted CBRS spectrum (228 Priority Access Licensees and 900 General Authorized Access users), and a large ecosystem of U.S. equipment suppliers and vendors has emerged,” Federated said.