- The OnGo Alliance is the biggest consortium representing the commercial CBRS industry
- The group says CBRS deployments are growing and the FCC should dismiss AT&T’s proposal to relocate the band
- Google, Qualcomm, Nokia and Federated Wireless are among OnGo's founding members
Would the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) industry consider moving from the 3.5 GHz to the 3.1-3.3 GHz portion of the band, as AT&T has suggested it do? That’s a hard no for the foreseeable future, according to Stephen Rayment, president of the OnGo Alliance. And no, he’s not entertaining questions about how much money it would take to get them to change their mind.
“It would be like telling the Wi-Fi guys they’ve got to move out of 5 GHz. You can imagine what their reaction to that would be,” Rayment told Fierce. “I think we have the same reaction.”
The alliance's take on AT&T’s proposal is important as OnGo is the single biggest consortium representing the commercial CBRS industry, working with the Wireless Innovation Forum on the standards front. Until now, the organization hasn’t said a whole lot about it beyond a four-paragraph letter filed with the FCC. (Google, Qualcomm, Nokia and Federated Wireless are among OnGo's founding members.)
There is precedent for moving incumbents from entrenched spectrum positions. The FCC did it with broadcasters via the incentive auction in 2016 and more recently, $9.7 billion was allocated for the relocation of satellite companies in the C-band to make way for 5G. The C-band auction raised a record $80 billion.
But the OnGo Alliance's members just spent the last 10 years getting to where they’re at today – having formed the specifications at 3.5 GHz, getting the Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrators lined up, developing products and deploying services.
Not to mention it’s one thing to move a handful of satellite companies and another to upend thousands of end users, Rayment said.
“How do you do this when you’ve got thousands of different operators and enterprises that are deploying these networks?" he asked. "How you manage that is not at all clear."
Taking a stand against AT&T
In a nutshell, AT&T is proposing that the U.S. government “rationalize” the 3 GHz band by relocating the three-tiered CBRS spectrum sharing model from 3.5 GHz to the 3.1-3.3 GHz range, with the 3.55–3.7 GHz band then auctioned for licensed, full-power use. The proceeds of the auction would then fund the relocation, and the 3.45 GHz–3.7 GHz would become one big spectrum swath for 5G/6G.
One big impediment to that scheme is the lower 3 GHz band is occupied by the Department of Defense (DoD), which uses the spectrum for homeland defense. The U.S. government is currently studying how the spectrum could be shared, and it’s by no means close to having a plan for that.
AT&T’s proposal comes as the FCC is considering ways to improve CBRS through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM). Released in August, the NPRM looks at a number of changes to CBRS rules, including higher power that carriers like AT&T have long sought. The FCC asked for comments from a wide range of stakeholders on a bunch of proposed improvements.
But for AT&T to suggest moving the entire band? That came out of left field.
“I don’t want to speak for the commission, but I don’t think that’s what the commission intended by letting this NPRM out,” Rayment said. “This is kind of a zinger from the side.”
What potential buyers are saying
For an auction to happen, the FCC would need to get its auction authority restored, and it’s not clear when operators’ appetites for more spectrum will translate into dollars spent. The next best prospect for an auction is for AWS-3 spectrum that is part of the National Defense Authorization Act working its way through Congress right now.
New Street Research analyst Blair Levin thinks AT&T is the most likely to bid for the AWS-3 spectrum. It has less mid-band spectrum than its peers, suggesting it will have the strongest appetite for the licenses in a re-auction, Levin said in a recent note for investors.
While all the carriers always want more spectrum, Verizon and T-Mobile don’t sound like they’re in a big hurry to spend a lot more money anytime soon.
At a recent investor event, Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg acknowledged that Verizon bought “as much C-band as possible and the board supported that,” which ended up being more than $52 billion. The C-band spectrum is “going to be for generations. I cannot say exactly when we’re going to exhaust it, but there is multi, multi, multi-years left on the C-band,” he said.
During the same event, T-Mobile CEO Mike Sievert noted that the operator has barely started deploying its C-band spectrum. “We have lots of spectrum we haven’t put into the fight yet,” he said. “We’ve only deployed 60% overall of our [2.5 GHz] midband spectrum onto 5G, we have lots of 4G refarming still to go.”
Road ahead
Of course, everyone is wondering what Trump 2.0 will bring. Trump’s pick as the next FCC chairman, Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr didn’t issue a statement when the FCC proposed updates to the CBRS band, although he previously expressed support for increasing power levels. Rayment said it’s too early to speculate what will happen with CBRS under the next administration.
While CBRS has its share of detractors, namely CTIA, the lobbying group for the nation’s biggest carriers, it wasn’t intended to be a spectrum band catering to those constituents. Yes, the mobile carriers are free to use the band, but it was envisioned as fostering all kinds of use cases beyond licensed wireless carriers, Rayment noted.
Suffice it to say, it took at least 10 years to get CBRS to where it is today. It would likely take an equal number of years to achieve similar results in another band, he said.
“This takes time and the last thing we want to do right now is undermine the CBRS ecosystem,” Rayment concluded.