The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) was originally envisioned as a true people’s broadband radio service – one that would be either free or highly affordable for small, locally-based operations of limited breadth and duration. The paradigm was a conscious break from the Metropolitan Statistical Area – or- larger sized service areas with 10-year renewable...… Continue Reading
The FCC is having second thoughts about the auctioned “middle layer” of the planned Citizens Broadband Radio Service at 3550-3700 MHz. You may remember how this is all supposed to work, with three categories of users. The “Incumbent Access” (IA) users, already in place in the band, will have interference protection from all the others....… Continue Reading
The FCCs rules for Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) have become final, after many years in the works. No, it’s not your grandfather’s “Ten-four, good buddy” citizens band, but a high-end, super-Wi-Fi-type service that someday will serve your portable devices with fast digital signals. But don’t run down to Best Buy quite yet. The engineers are...… Continue Reading
The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) has not even been born yet, but already major industry players want to change its basic character. CBRS, as its name implies, was conceived and approved by the FCC a couple of years ago as a broadband service for locally-focused businesses. The regulatory paradigm included both a large swathe...… Continue Reading
Back in May we reported on the opening up of the 3.5 GHz (3550-3700 MHz) band for a wide variety of new uses, making it the new home of the new Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). While some of the new (or modified) rules governing that band took effect last July, a number didn’t, thanks … Continue Reading
You already know (because we told you last week) that the Commission has received eight petitions for reconsideration of various aspects of its new rules establishing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service. Now, thanks to a notice in the Federal Register, we know when comments (and replies to those comments) about any or all of those … Continue Reading
Petitioners’ suggestions are all over the map. We reported last May on the FCC’s adoption of preliminary rules for the Citizens Broadband Service at 3550-3700 MHz. Under those rules, a control database and automated frequency assignment mechanism, dubbed the Spectrum Access System (SAS), will assign frequencies to users on the fly in three priority levels: … Continue Reading
Justifications for possible U.S.-only standard, other details, questioned The FCC’s Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) appears to have assigned a high priority to the issue of the use of unlicensed spectrum by licensed wireless services. Less than six weeks after the close of an initial comment period on the subject, OET has posed a … Continue Reading
Last month we reported on the FCC’s decision to open up the 3.5 GHz (3550-3700 MHz) band for a wide variety of new uses, making it the new home of the new Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). While (as we have also reported) a number of issue...