CBRS

FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said Thursday that she circulated for a commissioner vote an NPRM seeking comment on further changes to rules for the citizens broadband radio service band. An FCC and NTIA agreement unveiled Wednesday on broader use of CBRS (see 2406120027) shows what's possible when you push the boundaries of how spectrum is shared, experts said Thursday during a discussion at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) conference in Denver.

The FCC Wednesday notified certified spectrum access system administrators in the citizens broadband service band that they are now permitted to implement changes to the existing aggregate interference model used to protect federal operations in the band. Among the changes, SAS administrators may now assume an 80% time division duplex activity factor and 20% network loading factor for each CBRS device in the aggregate interference calculation, said a notice from the Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology. Administrators may use median irregular terrain model terrain dependent propagation loss “using reliability and confidence factors of 0.5 -- to calculate the aggregate received power levels” within a protection area. The FCC urged administrators to submit a demonstration of their ability to implement the new testing parameters in docket 15-319. NTIA approved the changes in a letter to the FCC posted Wednesday. “The changes outlined … will expand Internet access to more people across the country,” said NTIA Administrator Alan Davidson: “They could not have been implemented without the collaboration of the Navy and our ongoing coordination with the FCC.” The change will expand use of the band to tens of millions of Americans, said FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. “The CBRS dynamic spectrum sharing framework is already fertile ground for wireless innovation, and through collaboration with [DOD], NTIA, and stakeholders, we are expanding opportunities for reliable spectrum access while also ensuring that federal incumbents remain protected,” she said. The changes authorize service to approximately 72 million more POPs and expand the total unencumbered CBRS area to roughly 240 million POPs nationwide, the agencies said. CBRS is a prime example of how industry and government can coordinate on spectrum, Ira Keltz, deputy chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology said Wednesday at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) conference in Denver. When CBRS started, the initial exclusion zones were “huge” and would have excluded 75% of POPs, he said. NTIA, working with engineers, was able to reduce the size of the zones so that CBRS made more sense, industry was willing to invest, and the Navy felt comfortable that its radars would be protected, Keltz said. “It just really comes down to people being open-minded,” he said. Derek Khlopin, NTIA deputy associate administrator, noted the work to make CBRS work better. “These improvements we’ve made have been phenomenal,” he said, also at the ISART conference. He credited the Navy for its willingness to work with the NTIA and the FCC. “With little ‘greenfield’ spectrum available yet ever-increasing demand for spectrum-driven utilizations, sharing allows more efficient use of limited spectrum resources,” emailed Richard Bernhardt, vice president-spectrum and industry at the Wireless ISP Association: The development “will provide more predictability and allow for approximately 72 million additional people to be covered by CBRS without having to move or change power due to Federal operations.”

The FCC and NTIA are working together as well as Ira Keltz has seen in his 30 years of government service, but the deputy chief of the FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology said finding consensus on spectrum issues remains difficult. Keltz spoke Wednesday at the International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) conference in Denver. Echoing Keltz was Derek Khlopin, NTIA deputy associate administrator in the Office of Spectrum Management.

The work that industry and government are doing addressing “clutter analysis” and dynamic sharing is critical to the future of wireless, Shiva Goel, NTIA senior spectrum adviser, said at an International Symposium on Advanced Radio Technologies (ISART) conference on Tuesday. Goel said the government, working with industry, is making progress. The Denver conference's main focus this week is on propagation models that account for the impact of clutter, including foliage and buildings, on wireless signals.

The FCC on Thursday approved environmental sensing capability sensor deployments and coverage plans for Federated Wireless in Hawaii in the citizens broadband radio service band. The Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology in coordination with NTIA and the DOD made the approval. Federated has satisfied the sensor coverage requirements to protect DOD operations in nine dynamic protection areas in the state and Pearl Harbor, the notice said. Federated on Wednesday asked for an extra six months, from June 30 to Dec. 31, to launch operations. The extension “is necessary to allow Federated Wireless sufficient time to complete construction of its ESC network in Hawaii, which… is taking longer than anticipated due to circumstances beyond the company’s control.”

The U.S. is reaching an inflection point where some bands will be available only for sharing, said Derek Khlopin, deputy associate administrator-spectrum planning and policy in the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management. During an RCR Wireless private networks forum Tuesday, Khlopin said the national spectrum strategy discusses spectrum dynamic sharing many times, and that’s not a surprise. Khlopin, who is coordinating NTIA’s work on the strategy (see 2405060051), said, “I don’t think we really have a choice."

Samsung Electronics America urged the FCC to act on the company’s request for a waiver for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see 2309130041). Samsung summarized the record so far in the proceeding, in a filing posted Wednesday in docket 23-93. “Over the past 21 months, Samsung and others have provided information to the FCC numerous times explaining the benefits of this waiver, its compliance with the FCC’s rules (apart from the narrow waiver), its lack of any material impact on the noise environment in the CBRS band, and the fact that it would set no precedent for any future waivers for other, hypothetical equipment that (unlike the Samsung device) potentially would affect the CBRS noise environment,” Samsung said.

NCTA representatives discussed concerns about Samsung Electronics America’s request for a waiver for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see 2309130041), speaking with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel. Earlier, NCTA raised questions as well (see 2404090058). Samsung’s proposed radio threatens the utility of the CBRS band because of Samsung’s design choice not to use a filter between the C-Band and the CBRS band,” said a filing last week in docket 23-93. “The Commission could not justifiably grant Samsung’s waiver request without setting a precedent that future parties would rely on for other radios in these frequencies and many others,” NCTA said. Among those represented at the meeting were Comcast, Charter Communications and Cox Enterprises.

The Wireless ISP Association agreed with out-of-band emissions concerns that NCTA raised about Samsung Electronics America’s request for a waiver for a 5G base station radio that works across citizens broadband radio service and C-band spectrum (see [Ref:2404090058). WISPA representatives spoke with an aide to FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a filing this week in docket 23-93 said. “We explained that WISPA does not oppose Samsung’s specific request for waiver insofar as it requests a higher OOBE from the CBRS band into a specific portion of C-Band,” WISPA said: “However, WISPA expressed concern that the waiver request could be misinterpreted to allow the CBRS side of the radio to use the less restrictive C-band OOBE limits.”

The 5G cycle is reaching the middle stages, with strong growth over the past two years, Ericsson executives said during a Mobile World Live webinar on Thursday. At the end of 2023, 63% of wireless subscribers in the U.S. were using 5G, which is “remarkable,” especially given the 42% reported a year earlier, said Peter Linder, head-5G marketing at Ericsson North America.