The CBRS Alliance announced Thursday that Accelleran, Airspan Networks, American Tower Corp., AT&T, Baicells, CableLabs, Ericsson, ExteNet Systems, Nsight, Ranzure Networks, Rise Broadband and ZTE USA have joined the Alliance to drive technology development and adoption of LTE-based solutions for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). These companies represent the range of ecosystem partners that will accelerate innovation and spur economic growth.
The CBRS Alliance is an organization dedicated to developing, marketing and promoting LTE-based solutions utilizing the shared spectrum of the US 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band. It presents an opportunity to refine and generate industry learnings in spectrum sharing and to provide an industry platform for discussion and innovation in this approach to spectrum allocation.
The Alliance will work towards LTE CBRS field trials in the second half of this year and is developing an official certification process towards successful deployments of CBRS infrastructure.
In February, six wireless technology leaders announced their commitment to build an ecosystem of industry participants and make LTE-based solutions in the CBRS band widely available. In August, these companies unveiled the launch of the CBRS Alliance to develop, market and promote LTE-based solutions utilizing the shared spectrum of the U.S. 3.5 GHz CBRS band.
The six companies — Access Technologies (Alphabet), Federated Wireless, Intel, Nokia, Qualcomm and Ruckus Wireless (now part of Brocade) — believe that access to LTE-based solutions in the US 3.5 GHz frequency band will be a critical tool to meet rapidly expanding wireless data demands.
“For LTE-based solutions in the shared CBRS band to be successful, we need a wide range of ecosystem partners, infrastructure, equipment and network providers, to work together closely,” said Michael Peeters, vice president Innovation Portfolio, Nokia and President of the CBRS Alliance. “We are thrilled to welcome all the new members to the CBRS Alliance and look forward to working together to provide solutions toward in-building and outdoor cellular coverage.”
“CBRS is creating opportunities to bring the benefits of LTE technology to a wider ecosystem,” said Neville Meijers, VP Business Development, Qualcomm Technologies Inc., and chairman of the board for the CBRS Alliance. “CBRS enables new kinds of deployments and business models, from LTE-based neutral hosts that can serve multiple service providers, to dedicated networks serving various entities such as enterprises or IoT verticals.”
Back in April 2015, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) adopted rules for CBRS, which opens 150 MHz of spectrum (3550-3700 MHz) for commercial use — while providing necessary protection of incumbent users of the band. Spectrum access is actively coordinated based on priority and granular location, making previously allocated spectrum available to new entrants and services.
