CBRS Backhaul Supports Texas Citywide Hotspot Deployment Targeting Students

The city of McAllen (TX) is tapping unlicensed Citizen Band Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum to provide backhaul for a citywide Wi-Fi hotspot deployment aimed at enabling students in the city to gain internet connectivity to support distance learning during COVID-19. A large percentage of students are low income and do not have high-speed broadband at home. Many of the costs of constructing the network were covered through a CARES Act grant. The new network has 1,000 CBRS access point/ hotspots, enabling many students to connect from their homes, and there are plans to add at least 5,000 more access points over the next year.

Traditionally, public Wi-Fi hotspots would have fiber backhaul, but using CBRS spectrum enabled the network to be deployed more quickly. “The city has a mandate of utility poles every 600 feet, which worked out very well for this,” said Drew Lentz of Frontera Consulting,  who helped advise McAllen on the CBRS deployment. “We were not able to get on all of them, but in some of the neighborhoods, there’s an access point as close as 600 feet from each other.”