Nextlink teams up with Tarana to deploy CBRS spectrum in rural areas

Gigabit broadband service is coming to communities and rural areas in 11 states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wisconsin through a partnership by Nextlink and Tarana. They expect to expand service to hundreds of rural counties over the next several years, covering over a quarter million households. Part of this ties back to the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) licenses Nextlink picked up at auction in 2020. Nextlink bid $28.4 million for 1,072 Priority Access Licenses (PALs), which it’s using as part of its fixed wireless deployment. Tarana also offers a 5 GHz version of its platform, but Nextlink’s first choice is to use the 3.5 GHz CBRS spectrum where it has PALs. Nextlink is trying to do a couple of things with this platform, he said. One is to create competition in areas traditionally served by just one service provider, which could be a cable company or another fiber provider. Another is exceeding its Connect America Fund (CAF) obligations. Nextlink is receiving $281 million from the Federal Communications Commission to deploy 100/20 Mbps broadband to more than 100,000 locations across six states under the FCC's CAF Phase 2 program. Nextlink plans on using a combination of fiber and gigabit fixed wireless to meet its Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) obligations, and Tarana is “uniquely positioned” to help Nextlink deliver on all of its promises.