Industry coalescing around CBRS deployments in Q4
Ruckus Networks today announced a “major milestone” toward commercial deployments supporting shared access to the 3.5 GHz Citizens Broadband Radio Service band with certification from the U.S. Federal Communications Commission for its CBRS-compatible access point products.
Ruckus, a subsidiary of ARRIS, has been actively engaged in field tests of CBRS technology, including its most recent partnership with Pavlov Media, which sells voice, broadband and TV services. In the media company’s hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, the two firms are exploring how CBRS can provide a service boost to multi-family real estate owners.
“CBRS will be part of our solution offerings to enhance cellular connectivity in the thousands of locations we serve which house hundreds of thousands of people,” Mark Scifres, CEO of Pavlov Media, said. “We believe that our CBRS deployment with Ruckus will be critical to mobility in multi-dwelling units going forward and are planning for a national rollout as soon as possible.”
Shared access to the 3.5 GHz band, controlled by a spectrum access system, will prioritize users based on three tiers: incumbent users, priority access licensees and general authorized access. While the FCC continues to debate rules governing priority access licensure term and coverage area, it gave the go-ahead to propose initial commercial deployments back in June. Federated Wireless, a SAS provider, is the first to pitch and brought a joint proposal with partners, including ARRIS, to deploy 16,000 sites in 47 states.
Claiming a first with FCC certification, Ruckus President Ian Whiting said in a statement, “This major milestone is one of the final stages before CBS commercial deployments are made possible. As a leading network provider, we are enabling organization to deploy and manage a private LTE network, as easily as deploying a Wi-Fi network.”
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