We are involved in this band, at WinnForum. That's where the standards
are being written. The FCC announced the rules last year and did a minor
update of them earlier this year. Now we're working with WinnForum to
fix an oversight that makes the band pretty much unusable by rural
WISPs. ("What, your installers don't carry a sat phone?") We expect to
make progress, though.
The name Citizens Broadband Radio Service is really unfortunate. Press
articles about the CBRS Alliance are making jokes about "breaker-breaker
good buddy", and the article that Gino pointed to had a picture of a
President Washington CB transceiver. This band has nothing to do with CB
and doesn't work a bit like it. The only thing close to CB is that its
rules were assigned to a new Part 96, while CB itself is Part 95 of 47
C.F.R. (the FCC rules). It probably should have gotten a Part number in
the 20s, though, down by cellular.
The FCC rules are by design technology-agnostic. The CBRS alliance looks
like a pro-LTE group. LTE is going to be the dominant technology, and
some companies think LTE will totally dominate the band, but some of our
vendor members have other uses for CBRS. Existing 3650-3700 MHz is being
merged into CBRS, of course, which is what led to its being frozen in
April 2015. Some WiMAX equipment could be upgraded, for instance, to be
compliant. WinnForum has a Coexistence Task Group working on ways to
mitigate interference between dissimilar technologies.
The big carriers are looking at this for "small cells", essentially a
way to add spectrum capacity relatively cheaply so they can sell more
gigabytes of cat videos to smartphone users. Assuming we fix the glitch
in the rules, this will also be a useful WISP band, especially in rural
areas where the big boys don't need additional capacity. After all, they
already have 700 MHz, 800 MHz (original cellular A&B), 1900 MHz PCS,
1700 MHz AWS-1, and soon 600 MHz if the Incentive Auction now under way
is successful at buying out TV licenses. In the city, all those cat
videos are clogging existing spectrum, but elsewhere CBRS is likely to
be their fourth or fifth choice.
Licensing is complex. As you probably know, there are "incumbents"
(includes currently-registered 3650 licenses), PALs, and GAA ("licensed
by right" as a variant of unlicensed). PAL merely grants priority over
GAA in the Spectrum Authorization System; it doesn't block off any
frequencies. Rumor has it that one of the very big national carriers
plans to go all-GAA themselves. Since the license area is a Census
Tract, a PAL might be quite affordable for a rural WISP, if you think
it's worthwhile.
But making matters more complex is the need to protect fixed satellite
earth stations, as low as 3600 MHz. Plus the need to protect naval
radar, the band's primary owner. So the SASs will require radar
detectors (ESC) in the field before anyone can use the band outdoors
within about a hundred miles of the coasts. A ship pulling in to port
might then force frequency changes. So the actual use of this shared
spectrum is going to be a complex multivariate problem.
On 8/25/2016 8:19 AM, Steve Barnes wrote:
Thanks for posting this Gino,
I read the article and thought it was interesting. My only concern is
there will be that many more bidders in the PAL license area. I think
that this alliance has the capability to be a very good thing for
wisps. But it will make us have to spend the money to actually
purchase our spectrum. This is a new thought for many of us.
These 3 main players are already in the LTE market with Intel,
Qualcomm, and Nokia already having silicon that can do the CRBS band.
A stable uniform platform may arise from this that may interoperate
between carriers and may give WISPs the first time chance to partner
with celcos with interconnect agreements. Our networks will have to
be able to handle it but I think there is more revenue possible, at
least for Rural WISPs. Companies in very metro areas are probably out
of luck.
The thought of having a large amount of equipment that all uses the
same spec, the same timing mechanisms with GPS sync, allows us to buy
into the technology and share the spectrum. Maybe we can make this
band work the way that we wished all the bands worked and interoperate
with everyone who follows the spec and not be fighting the big boys
all the time….
*Steve Barnes*
Wireless Operations Manager
*PCSWIN.COM*
*NLBC.COM*
*From:*[email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
*On Behalf Of *Gino Villarini
*Sent:* Wednesday, August 24, 2016 1:22 PM
*To:* WISPA General List <[email protected]>
*Subject:* [WISPA] Big Guns align behind 3.5 ghz CBRS LTE
http://telecoms.com/475034/google-intel-nokia-qualcomm-and-other-form-3-5-ghz-alliance/
/*Gino Villarini*/
President
Metro Office Park #18 Suite 304 Guaynabo, Puerto Rico 00968
--
Fred R. Goldstein k1io fred "at" interisle.net
Interisle Consulting Group
+1 617 795 2701
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