Significantly higher power levels and relaxed emission limits across the citizens broadband radio service band could cause problems for users, Spectrum for the Future said following meetings with aides to FCC Commissioners Nathan Simington and Anna Gomez. Other groups and companies have expressed similar concerns (see 2502060050). “Such changes would fundamentally alter the longstanding nature of CBRS, result in massive harmful interference to existing deployments, undermine existing and planned investments” and “immediately halt America’s global momentum in private wireless networks,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-258.
Wireless carriers must add spectrum and deepen their fiber commitment, New Street’s Jonathan Chaplin said Wednesday. “Carriers should buy every piece of spectrum they can get their hands on … because we’re going to run out at some point relatively soon,” he told a Broadband Breakfast webinar. “There’s a scramble for both categories of assets, and they’re both imperative.”
President Donald Trump’s latest norm-busting executive order (see 2502180069) directing the FCC, among other "so-called independent" agencies and executive branch bodies, to submit regulatory actions to the White House before they're published in the Federal Register could complicate Brendan Carr’s push to be an active chairman at the FCC, industry experts said Wednesday.
The FCC said Thursday that Andrew, Federated Wireless, Google and Sony have been approved for additional five-year terms as spectrum access system administrators in the citizens broadband radio service band. Andrew, the newest name, is an entity owned by Amphenol, which recently purchased assets from CommScope, including its CBRS operations (see 2502040037). Federated, Google and Sony were the first to be approved as administrators, and their initial five-year terms expired in January (see 2501100025).
NCTA, major cable companies and other groups met with an aide to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to oppose proposed changes to rules for the citizens broadband radio service band, including higher power levels and relaxed emission limits. The lobbying reflects arguments a larger group of associations and companies made last week in a letter to Carr (see 2502060050). Those changes would “fundamentally alter the longstanding nature of CBRS, result in massive harmful interference to existing deployments" and "undermine existing and planned investments," said a filing posted Monday in docket 17-258. The changes could also "damage the trust in federal/commercial collaboration and sharing that has led to successful protection of national security operations while enabling innovative and competitive commercial use, and immediately halt America’s global momentum in private wireless networks,” it said. Others represented at the meeting included Spectrum for the Future, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and the Wireless ISP Association.
Federated Wireless representatives met with aides to FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington to call for rules that would facilitate deploying AI “and other advanced tools” to make the citizens broadband radio service band more efficient for users. The representatives discussed Federated’s “support for codification of the processes that are being used to manage CBRS spectrum access” and “greater harmonization of the CBRS rules with adjacent bands,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-258.
A broad group of companies and associations urged new FCC Chairman Brendan Carr to oppose fundamental changes to rules for the citizens broadband radio service band, including higher power levels and relaxed emission limits. “Such changes would fundamentally modify CBRS licenses and undermine the Commission’s bipartisan vision for CBRS as a lower-power, small-cell band that supports broad access and numerous applications,” said a filing posted Thursday in docket 17-258. The changes “would also imperil the technical progress made over the last decade through collaboration between the Commission, federal agencies, and industry,” it said. Among signers of the letter were NCTA and major cable companies, Amazon.com Services, the American Library Association, the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Deere & Co., Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Lockheed Martin, the Open Technology Institute at New America, Public Knowledge, the Schools, Health & Libraries Broadband Coalition, Shure, Spectrum for the Future and the Wireless ISP Association. CBRS is broadly used for “rural broadband, competitive mobile services, manufacturing, industrial and enterprise private networks, transportation and logistics connectivity (e.g. airports and shipping terminals), school and library access, and more,” the filing said.
CTIA hopes the Donald Trump administration will continue the spectrum studies launched under the national spectrum strategy, though potentially with tweaks to account for earlier studies, said Doug Brake, CTIA assistant vice president-policy communications, during a Broadband Breakfast webinar Wednesday.
Charter Communications sees broadband subscriber competition from fixed wireless access (FWA) having peaked and predicts that fiber overbuilding will slow down. In a call with analysts Friday as Charter reported its Q4 2024 results, CEO Chris Winfrey said the broadband environment is "still competitive in terms of fiber and cellphone internet overlap." But, he said, "we better be better this year than we were ... last year" -- especially with the loss of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) no longer dragging down results, as it did in the second half of 2024. Charter executives used the term "cellphone internet" five times in Friday's call.
EchoStar Chairman Charlie Ergen met with FCC Commissioner Nathan Simington on the need for the FCC to update its citizens broadband radio service rules, the focus of an August NPRM (see 2408160031). “EchoStar reiterated how harmonizing rules for the CBRS band with those of neighboring bands (i.e., the 3.45 GHz and 3.7 GHz bands) will maximize its utility and enable domestic carriers and vendors to participate in global economies of scale,” said a filing posted Friday in docket 17-258. “The majority of commenters in the record support proposals to update rules for the CBRS band,” and the commission “should move forward to enact such changes expeditiously,” EchoStar said.