Enhancing Experimentation and Innovation for 5G and Beyond

The program experimental license offers a new paradigm for the Experimental Radio Service (ERS), one that significantly reduces the barriers to experimentation for qualified entities. Under a program experimental license, a licensee is able to post a notification that it is experimenting in a particular band to a web portal. Other parties, specifically entities that hold licenses in bands that the experiment may use or affect (in a controlled manner) then have to proactively object if they have concerns about the interference potential from the experiment. The concept here is simple: allow entities with radio frequency expertise, that are able to manage radio frequency devices in a controlled environment without affecting other users, experiment more freely. We have been working to stand up the IT system necessary to facilitate the program experimental license for several years, and we are near completion. Within a few weeks, we will release a Public Notice announcing that the program experimental license is open for business. This could have huge benefits in the development of new wireless technologies, including 5G. Under the ERS, all of the bands the Commission adopted and proposed in the Spectrum Frontiers R&O and FNPRM are open for experimentation now. Under the new program experimental license, qualifying entities will have even fewer administrative hurdles to jump through, easing the path toward experimentation, and ultimately, innovation.