Major Changes Sought in Nascent Citizens Broadband Radio Service

The Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) has not even been born yet, but already major industry players want to change its basic character. CBRS, as its name implies, was conceived and approved by the Federal Communications Commission a couple of years ago as a broadband service for locally-focused businesses. The regulatory paradigm included both a large swathe of generally authorized access (also termed “licensed by rule”) channels that would be made available opportunistically to any entity and licensed channels made available on a census-tract basis for generally non-renewable three year terms. This generated quite a bit of opposition from larger carriers who insisted that the small license areas and short, non-renewable terms would make the band unsuitable for significant investment.

Yet the FCC stuck to its vision for this “citizen”-oriented service and adopted rules which are now effective, though users cannot be up and operating until the spectrum managers begin administering access to the spectrum.