Federated Wireless is continuing the kind of work that it started during the pandemic. In this case, it’s providing a private LTE network to students in the Seattle suburb of Tukwila, Washington, using – you guessed it – Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum.
Federated Wireless is a pioneer in the CBRS industry, establishing itself as a Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrator early in the technology’s history. But that’s not all it does. It also participates in building CBRS networks to bridge the digital divide in places that lack internet connectivity.
The new private LTE network for the Tukwila School District was funded by a $1.4 million grant from the Washington State Department of Commerce and administered through the Washington State Broadband Office. Federated Wireless will manage the network for three years.
The project will provide free internet access for up to 1,200 students. The network was specifically designed to serve students living in areas with the poorest connectivity as identified by the city’s broadband heat map, according to a press release.
Before building the CBRS network, Federated Wireless engineers first conducted a CBRS spectrum analysis, followed by a site survey and radio frequency (RF) study. Engineers then produced a wireless network design before installing eight outdoor 4G CBRS radios at five different sites throughout the school district.
The radios were supplied by Airspan, according to a Federated Wireless spokesperson. The network uses General Authorized Access (GAA)/unlicensed CBRS.
"Ultimately this is about equity," said Tukwila Mayor Allan Ekberg in a statement. "Enabling fair outcomes for every student and equitable access to an academic experience was the driving force behind our approach. Federated Wireless provided the network architecture and spectrum sharing capabilities we needed to get connectivity to students with the necessary broadband throughput required to do their schoolwork.”
Role of the SIM
Students were provided with Chromebooks capable of connecting to school resources via the private network. The network was designed to ensure student safety and to protect the throughput of the network by controlling use at the endpoint, achieved by pre-provisioning each Chromebook with a SIM card, the company said.
“Using a SIM card provides additional security and places control of the Chromebooks in the hands of the school district,” said City of Tukwila CTO Joel Bush in a statement. “This is an instance of numerous teams, including King County IT, Impact Charter Schools, Bellwether Housing, Tukwila School District, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, the Puyallup Tribe of Indians, WSBO, and Federated Wireless, all working together under a short timeline.”
The global pandemic hit some communities especially hard, like McAllen, Texas, where the infection rate was 2.5% compared to the national average of 1.6%. Federated was involved in a project there in 2020 to provide a CBRS network for students to do remote learning.
Last year, Federated Wireless was named as one of the vendors for a $1.4 million project to create a private CBRS network for a school and two public housing communities in Sacramento.