CBRS Alliance Readies for First U.S. Mid-band 5G Deployments

SUNNYVALE, CA — The CBRS Alliance, an industry organization focused on driving the development, commercialization, and adoption of OnGo shared spectrum solutions, announced the completion of specifications that support specific OnGo configurations for 5G New Radio (5G NR). The FCC authorized Full Commercial Deployment in the CBRS band in January 2020, and with CBRS Alliance Release 3 addressing support for 5G deployments using shared spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band, the market for OnGo services and solutions is expanding quickly.

In April 2019, FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly remarked that the CBRS 3.5 GHz band would likely be the first mid-band 5G opportunity in the U.S. Today, the CBRS Alliance confirms this prediction is a reality. Globally, industry and government are focusing on 3.5 GHz as the primary mid-band spectrum for 5G deployments and testing underway in Europe, the Middle East and East Asia.

Developing Technical Specifications for Shared Spectrum and Mobility

“The CBRS band is fully authorized for commercial service at a moment when enabling 5G is an important step for the wireless community,” said Gary Boudreau, LTE and NR System Architect, Ericsson, and CBRS Alliance Technical Working Group Chair. “Over the past year, the CBRS Alliance worked with 3GPP and Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnForum) to develop technical specifications for shared spectrum and mobility to ensure that 5G NR use cases are supported in addition to LTE in the CBRS band. The specifications also address seamless interoperability, authentication, and roaming of data and voice.”

The new specifications incorporate 5G NR definitions and standards developed by the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) to support the wide variety of 5G services, devices, and deployments. The work conducted by the CBRS Alliance builds on those specifications to enable enterprise deployments and security, including:

• Extended authentication support
• Local break-out of data traffic for low latency, multi-access computing and reduced backhaul
• The creation of a foundation for industry support of commercial and private roaming of data and voice

CBRS Alliance Release 3 aligns with 3GPP’s release 15 specifications, and continuing work in Release 4 will align with 3GPP releases 16 and 17.

To view the specifications, please visit https://www.cbrsalliance.org/specifications/.

The shared spectrum model pioneered in the CBRS band creates opportunities for a broad swath of the wireless ecosystem including mobile operators, cable operators and MVNOs, neutral host providers, enterprise (private LTE networks), and fixed wireless providers (WISPs). The availability of 5G in the CBRS band specifically enables vertical solutions that require ultra-low latency, such as precision Industrial IoT (IIoT), massive bandwidth (large hotels/casinos), and diversity and scale of devices that require connectivity (large stadiums, airports or similar environments).

Priority Access License (PAL) Auctions

Auctions for the Priority Access License (PAL) tier of the 3.5 GHz band will begin on June 25th, 2020. The CBRS Alliance and OnGo specifications enable service providers, operators and users, and PALs to offer additional innovative business models and services for the 3.5GHz band.