Federated Chief Sees Spectrum Sharing Focus Continuing Under Trump

Federated has been a leading player in sharing, including in the citizens broadband radio service and 6 GHz bands. Tarazi sees a potential role for the company in a potential sharing regime for the 4.9 GHz band, a focus of the FCC during the last several administrations.

“Certainly, spectrum is more active now, and it’s on people’s minds,” Tarazi said, noting that the CBRS band's final rules were approved under Republicans during the first Donald Trump administration. “We feel good that there’s continuity.” The new administration has yet to announce who will serve in many key positions that will play a role in making spectrum decisions, he noted.

Tarzi said he believes spectrum policy will only get more complicated. The spectrum that’s left for repurposing “is very encumbered with a lot of weapons systems, a lot of existing users -- moving them would take a long, long time with a lot of costs.”

Federal policymakers, he believes, will develop a solution for the lower 3 GHz band that blends sharing and some clearing. Tarazi anticipates “a modified version of sharing … due to the number of weapons systems that are already operating in it.” He added, “Next-generation sharing” will “look to some people almost as good as clearing."

Opening the lower 3 GHz band will probably require another five years of study, though work could move more quickly under Trump, Tarazi said. That would make the band available for 6G, he noted. “There’s a lot more interest in making that [spectrum] available sooner,” he said, adding, “these are early days” in discussions on lower 3 GHz. “We don’t know yet what we don’t know and much is still to be defined.”

Bands in the 7/8 GHz range, another focus of carriers for exclusive licensed use, may prove less desirable. What we learned from millimeter-wave deployments is that “these higher bands, while they look very attractive on paper, they’re very complex” to deploy “and they have a lot of performance issues.”

An NPRM proposing further CBRS rule changes (see 2406130055) will likely move forward, Tarazi predicted, but he doesn’t expect changes to rules opening the 6 GHz band to unlicensed use. He sees 6 GHz as a “success,” but conceded it's still in “very early deployment.” All indications are that in three or four years there will be “massive deployments” using 6 GHz.

Federated launched a 6 GHz automated frequency coordination offering more than a year ago and is working with equipment makers, Tarazi said. “We have been able to get the speed, the performance, the reliability, the testing, all these things done, and we’re not alone." At least three other providers are “in the AFC business, so there’s an industry around it.”

Tarazi said he expects FCC action on the 37 GHz band. NTIA and DOD released a recent study proposing sharing the 37.2-37.6 GHz portion of the band with priority access for DOD in 37.0-37.2 GHz (see 2412030057). “It should be an easy decision to move forward on it, keep moving forward,” he said: “If there’s a different consideration we’ll know soon enough.”

Federated last week announced its private 5G networking technology is under a 42-month contract, valued at more than $6 million, with the Marine Corps Logistics Command at the Albany, Georgia, logistics hub. That follows years of tests as DOD examines how it can use private 5G (see Ref:2010190049]). “What’s significant here is we’ve made it through the R&D phase, and we now have a commercial contract.”