- The company owns oodles of CBRS licenses across the country
- But it’s not using CBRS spectrum for the buildout of its nationwide 5G network
- Boost is waiting to get clarity from the FCC before proceeding with an aggressive rollout
Dish Network was the second biggest winner in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) auction for Priority Access Licenses (PALs) in 2020, spending almost $1 billion to acquire 5,492 licenses.
But it’s not using those licenses, which cover most of the U.S., in the buildout of its wide area 5G network. That’s because there’s a rulemaking in front of the FCC that proposes reforms to the CBRS band that would change how it’s deployed, possibly making it much more functional for Boost.
“We've not started with CBRS,” Boost Mobile Chief Technology Officer Eben Albertyn told Fierce in a recent interview. “This discussion with the FCC is fantastically timely. I think we should have that discussion.”
The discussion he’s referring to is what’s formally known as a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) at the FCC, which contemplates higher power limits, relaxed out-of-band-emissions and other changes to promote investment in the 3.5 GHz band.
In tandem, Boost wants the FCC to harmonize CBRS with international standards, allowing U.S. operators to benefit from economies of scale, much like operators in other countries where the 3.45-3.9 GHz band is considered one standardized band.
“This alignment would enable us to use existing radios that offer carrier aggregation and TDD services across the full band,” Albertyn said.
But it’s no slam dunk. A lot of stakeholders are telling the FCC how to move forward and some don’t want to see higher power levels or increased out-of-band emissions. CTIA argues that the CBRS “experiment” failed and contributed to the U.S. falling behind other nations that made the 3.5 GHz band available for licensed 5G use. AT&T went so far as to propose the CBRS band be moved to 3.1-3.3 GHz, currently occupied by the Department of Defense (DoD), which isn’t exactly chomping at the bit to share its spectrum with anyone.
That’s not the only issue. The CBRS conundrum for Boost presents a cascading effect. Dish also bought a lot of licenses at 3.45 GHz – where the power levels are much higher than CBRS – and it’s put the deployment of that on hold as well until they know what’s going to happen with CBRS. Ditto for C-band, which is at the upper end of the band, at 3.7 GHz.
“It would make sense for me to have clarity on high-power CBRS before you start to hang thousands and thousands of radios that are designed for a different technology disposition,” Albertyn said. “Before we start rolling out C-band and CBRS, I think it would be wise to have this conversation with the FCC at this point in time.”
Meanwhile, Boost is meeting the FCC’s criteria for deploying a nationwide 5G network by using 600 MHz spectrum for the lower tier, with a mid-band layer supported by bands n70 and n66, typically 1800 and 2100 MHz, he said. Boost expects to cover 80% of the U.S. population by the end of this year.
If Boost parent EchoStar is successful in efforts to get the FCC to increase power levels in the CBRS band, it could turn what’s currently a 30 MHz 5G band into a 50 MHz 5G band by combining its 3.5 GHz with 3.45 GHz spectrum. That would increase its value and utility in the industry, noted Terry Chevalier in a LinkedIn post earlier this year. “This could raise more funds, improve customer experience, or forge closer partnerships with other operators,” he wrote.
To be clear, Dish has used CBRS for a handful of private network deployments, but those are separate from its wide area network build. EchoStar CEO Hamid Akhavan said on the Q3 earnings call last week that he expects private 5G networks to deliver “hockey stick” type growth, but not in the immediate future as those kinds of deals take a very long time to develop and win.
Not the only one
Boost Mobile certainly isn’t the only one backing off from CBRS right now.
Helium, a leading player in the decentralized wireless movement, switched its strategy to focus on Wi-Fi because it’s easier to implement than CBRS. Joey Padden is the co-founder of FreedomFi, which in 2022 was acquired by Nova Labs, creator of the Helium brand.
According to Padden, the “CBRS user experience jungle” makes it extremely difficult if not impossible for a company of his size to onboard and configure consumer devices for CBRS.
It’s not for lack of trying. Helium customers bought and installed more than 9,000 CBRS radios before it decided to put all of its focus on Wi-Fi. CBRS offers better overage than Wi-Fi, but the process of getting end user devices onto a small CBRS network like theirs is untenable, he said.
Customers of large established carriers using CBRS don’t have the same problems as Helium because Apple and Google decided it was worth the effort to accommodate the large established carriers, according to Padden.
If Apple and Google in the future were to improve the user experience, either on their own or because of an FCC rule, “we would love to leverage CBRS,” he said. “It’s just not an option at the moment.”
It’s anyone’s guess when the FCC will make a final decisions about the proposed reforms, which are open for public comment until December 5 and soon will be governed by a new FCC, likely to be chaired by President-elect Donald Trump's nominee, Republican Commissioner Brendan Carr. “I would have to imagine it’s going to go slower than if it wasn’t occurring during an administration change,” Padden commented.
NTIA backs CBRS
Of course, CBRS has its enthusiasts, too. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) last week submitted data to the FCC showing significant growth in CBRS deployments, with an increase of 270,621 from April 2021 to July 2024. Some 82.7% of all counties in the U.S. used at least one channel of CBRS and 41% of all counties used all 15 channels as of July 2024.
Michael O’Rielly, president of MPORielly Consulting, was former FCC Chairman Ajit Pai’s point person on CBRS when the FCC established its current rules. He spent a lot of time refining the structure.
“CBRS seems to be humming along fairly nicely and provides a reasonable proof of concept,” he told Fierce in an emailed statement.
“While it probably won’t be fully replicated completely elsewhere, the structure is a broad framework for unique spectrum situations. Proposals to rework CBRS will likely need significant buy-in from interested parties. No matter what, we need more licensed, unlicensed, and shared commercial spectrum and a reduction in the federal spectrum footprint," he concluded.