The citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) band has moved beyond the experimental stage and demonstrated its effectiveness, Salt Point Strategies’ Dave Wright said last week during a webinar hosted by consulting firm Senza Fili. CBRS “works,” said Wright, former president of the OnGo Alliance, which promotes the CBRS. “We’ve been doing it for five years. We’ve got 420,000 base station radios operating in the band,” and “we’ve had zero reports of interference” to the military systems that share the spectrum.
FCC authority to change the national TV ownership cap remains unclear, and anything the agency does is likely to end up challenged in court, agency Chief of Staff Scott Delacourt said Wednesday at a Media Institute event. He also waved off the idea that the end of Chevron deference significantly changes how the FCC will defend its actions in court. The commissioners will vote on kicking off the 2022 quadrennial review of broadcast-ownership rules at its meeting next week (see 2509090060).
NCTA and WISPA said the FCC should think twice before quickly agreeing to give Viaero a waiver of a rule that limits a single party to owning four citizens broadband radio service priority access licenses (PAL) in any market. Comments were due Wednesday to the Wireless Bureau on Viaero's proposal to buy 10 priority access licenses from Citizens Band License Co., which would result in it exceeding the limit in seven counties in Colorado (see 2509050021).
Federated Wireless Chief Technology Officer Kurt Schaubach touted the importance of the citizens broadband radio service (CBRS) band in a meeting with FCC Commissioner Olivia Trusty, according to a filing Monday in docket 17-258. Federated officials called for “critical” changes to rules for the band to further spur deployment.
Nokia filed at the FCC data related to its initial commercial deployment as a spectrum access system administrator for the citizens broadband radio service band (see 2407180035). All the data was redacted from the filing made Wednesday in docket 15-319.
Ten Senate Republicans want to mitigate parts of the GOP’s compromise on a spectrum pipeline framework, adopted in July via the budget reconciliation package, amid an ongoing push to excise language in the FY 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (S-2296) that would give the Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman authority to veto commercial use of the 3.1-3.45, 7 and 8 GHz bands (see 2509100064).
Airspan is revising its request for a waiver allowing it to manufacture a multiband radio device that operates across bands adjacent to the citizens broadband radio service band, the company told the FCC after CBRS proponents raised objections (see 2508190037). "Rather than expending resources to address the merits” of the CBRS out-of-band-emissions parts of its petition, “Airspan is in the process of revising its filter design,” said a filing Tuesday in docket 25-234. “This redesign process is underway and is expected to allow Airspan to resubmit a revised waiver request with the FCC, one that does not feature any OOBE in the CBRS band that is [in] excess of that permitted under current FCC rules.”
Meeting the goals of the budget reconciliation package to make 800 MHz of spectrum available for auction (see 2507070045) won’t be easy, especially with 3.1-3.45 and 7.4-8.4 GHz exempted from potential reallocation, warned Joe Kane, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation's director of broadband and spectrum policy. Kane spoke with former FCC Commissioner Mike O’Rielly in a new webcast, part of a series for the Free State Foundation.
WISPA and two public interest groups opposed Airspan Networks’ request for a waiver allowing it to manufacture a multiband radio device that operates across bands adjacent to the citizens broadband radio service band. NCTA earlier opposed the waiver (see 2507090012). Airspan said in its waiver it’s seeking relief from out-of-band emission limits similar to what was already approved for Ericsson and Samsung. Oppositions were posted on Tuesday in docket 25-234.
The FCC’s top telecom priorities include the components of Chairman Brendan Carr’s “Build America Agenda,” stabilizing USF and deregulation, agency Chief of Staff Scott Delacourt said. NTIA Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Adam Cassady said finishing BEAD "is job one," but other tasks include space policy revisions and identifying spectrum for commercialization. The two spoke Monday at Technology Policy Institute’s annual Aspen Forum.