Tag Archives: CBRS

Pushing Back Against Municipal Broadband

As a cautionary tale to any city that provides broadband, the incumbent ISPs are always going to push back on city initiatives. The following is a story from the summer that slipped off my radar. The city of Tucson, Arizona, launched a free wireless network to bring broadband to students in homes without broadband. As would be expected, the incumbent cable company, Cox Communications, fought against the city-provided broadband.

The city recognized the need for the network when it got requests for over 7,000 wireless access points from students during the pandemic. The city decided that the best long-term solution to the large numbers of unserved students was to create a private network using CBRS spectrum. We tend to think of municipal wireless networks as slow, but the city’s network rivals the broadband speeds offered by other cellular carriers in the city.

The city is using 4G LTE technology, which provides for the same indoor coverage as received by cell phones. The city identified 20 square miles of the city with the greatest number of students without home broadband. The initial network consisted of 40 small cell sites, and there are plans to add more. Broadband is received in the home through a typical cellular receiver and a SIM card that identifies the network. Broadband speeds are more than adequate to support a single student with download speeds over 50 Mbps and upload speeds over 3 Mbps. This network avoids the problem of having multiple students in a household sharing the network because it provides a receiver for each student.

The network has some interesting features. It supports basic network slicing which gives the school board the ability to prioritize school broadband traffic over other uses by students. The city is now looking at how to use this network for smart city purposes since the network provides broadband everywhere. The city is considering using the technology for monitoring the water system (critical infrastructure in arid Tucson), for providing ubiquitous broadband in parks, for connecting to all firefighters and other first responders, and for controlling traffic lights.

As might be expected, Cox Communications, the incumbent cable company, pushed back against the city network. When the wireless network was first discussed publicly, Cox made a proposal to provide 10 Mbps broadband to students in some selected parts of the city. When told that the wireless network would be delivering speeds of at least 50 Mbps, Cox countered that it would also be able to match the higher speed. But the first Cox offer is typical of most cable company low-income broadband programs – the speeds offered are far slower than what is delivered to a basic broadband customer.

Cox also sent a letter to the Tucson city council that warned about the problems that would be caused by broadband competition from the city. The letter included the same refrains we have seen elsewhere. The city shouldn’t be competing against the public sector. Cox warned that the city would have a hard time maintaining its new network. Cox also offered to partner with the city to build broadband in parts of the city not reached by Cox (with the city paying for the expansion).

I’m not sure that we should expect incumbents to act differently. As the cable company, Cox has a virtual monopoly on broadband since Cox largely competes only against DSL – and monopolies always fight to maintain monopoly power. Cable companies fight against all competition. They try every trick in the book to delay new commercial ISPs from building networks. But cable companies roll out a full press against city initiatives because they hope there is a political pressure point that will cause the city to reconsider. They know it’s a smart tactic because there are many cities that have canceled broadband plans after heavy lobbying by the incumbents.

In this case, the city didn’t back down and has launched the first phase of the wireless network. This became much easier for the city to finance after it received ARPA money from Congress that can be used to pay for broadband infrastructure. I am positive that the city will derive huge benefits from this network far past the day when the pandemic is behind us.

CBRS Auction Winners

The FCC held a recent auction for the  3.5GHz Citizens Band Radio Spectrum (CBRS). The auction went for 76 rounds and raised over $4.5 billion for the FCC. This auction was unique in that spectrum was licensed at the county-level awarding up to seven licensed 10 MHz channels in each county. Each PAL (Priority Access License) is good for 10 years.

CBRS spectrum can be used in several applications. The spectrum has good field operating parameters and falls in the middle between the two existing blocks of spectrum used for WiFi. This makes the spectrum ideal for rural point-to-multipoint fixed wireless broadband since it can carry a decent amount of bandwidth for a decent distance. The best aspect of this spectrum is that it’s licensed and will largely be free from interference. For the same reasons, this is also a good spectrum for cellular data.

The biggest winner in the auction was Verizon which spent $1.89 billion on the spectrum. The company landed 557 PALs licenses in 57 counties. The company needed this spectrum to fill-in mid-range spectrum for 5G. Verizon has also recently announced a fixed cellular broadband product for rural homes and this spectrum could provide an interference-free way to deliver that product from rural cell sites.

As expected, Dish networks was also a big winner and will be paying $913 million for CBRS spectrum. As the newest nationwide cellular carrier, the company needed this spectrum to fill in the holes in the cellular spectrum it already controls. The other traditional cellular companies were a no-show. AT&T didn’t buy any of the CBRS spectrum. T-Mobile only purchased 8 PALs licenses in six counties.

The largest cable companies scored big in the auction. Charter bought $464 million of spectrum, Comcast is paying $458 million for spectrum, and Cox purchased $212 million of spectrum. As the newest entrants in the cellular business, Comcast and Charter have been buying wholesale cellular broadband from Verizon – this spectrum will let them shift to their own cell sites for a lot of cellular traffic. There is also speculation that cable companies might be planning on using the new spectrum to launch a fixed-wireless product in the rural areas surrounding their cable properties. Both Charter and Cox have entered the upcoming RDOF auction that is awarding $16.4 billion for rural broadband and the companies might be planning on using this spectrum to cover any areas they can win in that reverse auction.

One of the smaller cable companies, Midcontinent Communications, spent over $8.8 million for PALs licenses. Midco already won sizable rural grants to deploy 100 Mbps broadband in Minnesota and the Dakotas. This spectrum will help the company meet those grant pledges and perhaps allow it to pursue RDOF grants.

There were a few other large bidders. One was Nextlink which provides fixed wireless broadband today in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Illinois. Windstream purchased over 1,000 PALs and the traditional telco is likely going to replace aging rural copper with wireless service, while also possibly be expanding into new service territories with fixed wireless. SAL Spectrum LLC won 1,569 PALs. This company owns numerous other blocks of spectrum and it’s not clear who the user of this new spectrum might be.

The biggest news is that the auction allowed smaller bidders to win licensed spectrum. There were 228 different winners in the auction, most of which are small WISPs, telcos, and electric cooperatives. These entities benefited by the FCC’s willingness to auction the spectrum at the county level. Most previous wireless spectrum was allocated using much larger footprints, which kept small bidders from acquiring spectrum.

FCC Modifies CBRS Spectrum Rules

The FCC adopted Report and Order 18-149 that modifies the rules for using the 3.5 GHz spectrum band known as the Citizens Broadband Radio Service or CBRS. This is a huge swath of spectrum covering 150 MHz between 3550 and 3700 MHz. This order initiates the process of activating the spectrum for widespread use. This spectrum sits in the middle between the two WiFi bands and has great operating characteristics for wireless broadband.

The FCC plans to auction 70 MHz of the spectrum in June 2020 while authorizing the remaining 80 MHz for public use. In all cases, the spectrum must be shared with the military, which gets priority access to the spectrum at any time.

The spectrum also must be shared among users – something that will be monitored by authorized SAS administrators. The FCC named five administrators in the docket: Amdocs, CommScope, Federated Wireless, Google, and Sony. The administrators must report back to the FCC after 30 days to report how their software is handling the tracking and sharing of the spectrum.

The FCC changed their original plans for the auction and use of the spectrum that was originally proposed in 2015. The size of a license footprint is now set at the county level rather than the smaller census blocks. Licenses will now be issued for 10 years with a provision to renew instead of 3 years. Small businesses and rural bidders can get bidding credits. The FCC is also establishing a secondary market by allowing license holders to sell or lease the spectrum to others.

Of most interest to rural carriers are the bidding credits. Small businesses with gross revenues less than $55 million will get a 15% bidding credit. Very small businesses with annual gross revenues under $20 million will get a 25% bidding credit. Rural carriers with less than 250,000 customers will get a 15% credit. There will be additional credits given for serving tribal lands.

Much of the public comments in the docket centered on the size of the service areas. The FCC had originally considered using census blocks, reasoning that rural carriers could pursue reasonably small licenses for offering rural fixed wireless. The cellular carriers wanted much larger areas referred to as partial economic areas (PALs). The FCC finally chose a license size in the middle, using county borders.

The spectrum in each county will be auctioned off in seven 10-MHz bands. Any bidder will be limited to using no more than 4 of the bands, or 40 MHz of spectrum. Interestingly, the ability to lease spectrum from others might mean that a wireless carrier could put together even a bigger swath of the spectrum.

The auction is going to be interesting to watch to see who shows up to bid. The cellular carriers have said that this spectrum is key to their mid-band 5G plans. The industry was already anticipating this order and this spectrum is already built into the new iPhone and a few other devices. The cellular carriers have plans to heavily use the 80 MHz of public spectrum, and they will certainly also chase the licensed spectrum in urban counties. We’ll have to see if they have any need or interest to pursue the licensed spectrum in rural counties, where one might think that the public bands of CBRS ought to satisfy their needs. If the big companies pursue the rural bands, they can drive prices up, even considering the rural company bidding credit.

Spectrum licenses have historically been awarded for much larger footprints and it will be interesting to see how awarding spectrum at the county level will impact the auction. There are already rural carriers using the public portions of the spectrum for fixed wireless service. What is unknown is how much the cellular carriers will also use the public spectrum in rural places, perhaps making the public band too crowded for getting the best use of fixed wireless. WISPs will likely prefer licensed spectrum if they can get it affordably since there will be zero interference. We’ll also have to see if many WISPs will have the financial wherewithal to pursue licensed spectrum.

One of the most interesting aspects of the order is allowing spectrum buyers to lease or sell spectrum. I fear this provision will attract speculators to the auction, which could drive up the cost of buying spectrum and also then drive up the cost of leasing the spectrum. But this also might give small ISPs that couldn’t qualify for the auction the ability to use licensed spectrum.

Another Spectrum Giveaway?

It looks like the FCC might finally be ready to move forward with a plan for Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS). In what seems to be the repeated theme of the current FCC, the rules for awarding the spectrum heavily favor the big carriers.

The FCC has been wrestling with the disposition of this spectrum for years and it’s not hard to understand why. The spectrum sits between the two current WiFi bands and is ideal for data transmission. This band of spectrum would be a huge boon for rural broadband. The 150 megahertz of spectrum could be leveraged to greatly increased fixed wireless data speeds from WISPs. If the spectrum was fully made available for rural fixed wireless broadband we could see foxed-wireless data speeds increased to hundreds of Mbps.

But the spectrum is also ideal for 5G cellular data. This is the kind of bandwidth that cellular carriers need in urban areas if they are going to try to boost cellular speeds to the target of 100 Mbps set by the 5G standards. Additionally, the width of this band of spectrum makes it ideal for communicating with huge numbers of IoT devices using the 5G capability of slicing spectrum into tiny or large bands as needed for an individual application.

This is obviously not an easy decision for the FCC which is why the determination of how to use the spectrum has dragged on for years. They’ve had a wide range of proposal in front of them for how to allocate the spectrum. The big cellular companies have always urged having an auction for the spectrum with licenses covering large geographic areas as has been done with most other cellular spectrum.

The small wireless carriers and rural broadband advocates have been urging a solution that would provide bandwidth for rural broadband while also satisfying the needs of the urban 5G carriers. They’ve lobbied for licensing at least some of the spectrum to areas as small as a census blocks while also promoting spectrum sharing so that multiple license holders can coexist on the spectrum. Under their plan both the rural WISPs and the cellular carriers in towns could use the spectrum, with little overlap.

It looks like we’re nearing the end of the debate and as usual, the large carriers appear to have won. FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly recently released a document that proposes to auction the spectrum off with the license footprints defined as county boundaries. Another boon to the big ISPs is lengthens the term of the licenses from 3 years to 10 years and allows licenses to be renewed. He’s also proposing that county bids can be ‘packaged’, allowing bidders to go after multiple counties with one bid. His article makes it sound like the spectrum will be released next year, so I have to assume that a majority of FCC Commissioners are on board.

He makes his plan sound like a compromise between the interests of small and large wireless providers. However, we know from past practice that the big wireless carriers will buy all of the spectrum in counties with any sizable population centers and remove those counties from the market for smaller carriers. It’s even unlikely that WISPs will win many licenses in mostly rural counties since there are usually well-heeled speculators that buy spectrum with the hopes of selling it for more later.

The FCC could have chosen to deploy this spectrum in a way that could have helped to solve the rural broadband gap. We know that the availability of bandwidth drops off rapidly at the edge of towns and cities. This means that for most of rural America the best broadband solution for now is fixed wireless. The proposal to license spectrum by census block was somewhat complicated, but it would have made this spectrum available in rural America where it is badly needed.

We know that cellular carriers don’t share or license their spectrum to others. There is a lot of existing licensed spectrum owned by the cellular carriers that sits empty and unused in rural America. The FCC is squandering away another opportunity to provide the bandwidth needed to provide robust broadband in rural areas. The cellular carriers will buy most of the CBRS spectrum and will use it to enhance cellphone broadband in towns and cities – an admittedly great use of the spectrum. Yet two miles outside of towns the spectrum will sit unused, when it could be providing 100 Mbps broadband to the residents there. It’s frustrating and perplexing that the FCC won’t require spectrum sharing in places where the license holders aren’t deploying it – not only for CBRS spectrum, but for all licensed spectrum.