CTIA Questions Findings in NTIA's CBRS Report

CTIA questioned the conclusions in a May NTIA report arguing that dynamic sharing and the citizens broadband radio service should be a model for future spectrum use (see 2305010063). Filings were due Wednesday but hadn't been posted by the NTIA. The Wireless ISP Association supported the findings in the report (see 2305310062).

“The preemptible, low-power CBRS framework has resulted in under-utilization of this valuable spectrum resource,” CTIA said in its filing. The data contained in the report “do not demonstrate otherwise,” CTIA said, noting that the 3550-3700 MHz band is widely licensed globally for 5G.

“Key findings ... overstate CBRS service and coverage ,” CTIA said: The report “utilizes an abandoned methodology for quantifying spectrum usage and coverage -- namely, suggesting that the population in a geographic area is served if a single site is active in that area.” Congress and the FCC “have deemed this methodology unreliable in assessing broadband availability and instead require more granular service area maps to show coverage.”

CTIA said the report leans heavily on WISP use of the band to demonstrate it’s working in rural markets. “Perhaps half” the CBRS devices active in the band “could be legacy WISP stations and attaching customer premises equipment that operated in a portion of the CBRS band prior to adoption of the CBRS framework and have since transitioned to CBRS Part 96-compliant status,” CTIA said. The group has been a longtime skeptic of CBRS (see 2211140062).

WifiForward supported NTIA’s findings. “The CBRS model proves that opening additional spectrum for shared use is an efficient way to deliver access to underserved and unserved populations while maintaining incumbent access to those bands, including for important government uses,” WifiForward said. The group noted five examples of how the band is being used, including by the Fort Worth Independent School System to create a private LTE for student use and by Amazon Web Services for private 5G: “Dow has used CBRS to fully digitize its manufacturing processes, increasing safety outcomes at its factories.”

The opposition of major providers was expected, WifiForward said: “The dominant carriers who benefit the most from exclusive licensing oppose the CBRS band because its spectrum-sharing model does not exclusively favor them.”

Officials at other groups told us they decided against filing comments.

The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation didn’t file, said Joe Kane, director-broadband and spectrum policy. “Everyone seems to be reading their preexisting views” into the report, he said. The report “doesn't seem to take a position on whether CBRS is a success or not” though device count is “a less important measure of productivity than spectrum utilization would be,” he said.

The Public Interest Spectrum Coalition also didn’t file but made clear its position in recent comments at the NTIA on the national spectrum strategy, an official said. Those comments urged the administration to “explicitly recognize that CBRS and coordinated three-tier spectrum sharing have been one of the government’s most successful spectrum policy innovations, fully protecting incumbents and enabling very innovative and diverse local access to spectrum.”