Spectrum

Stopgap funding legislation designed to prevent a federal-government shutdown includes language extending the Federal Communication Commission's spectrum-auction authority into December, although the impact on potential funding for next-generation 911 (NG911) deployments remains unclear. Currently, the FCC’s authority to conduct auctions of the radio spectrum—bidding events that have provided airwaves to wireless communications and generated hundreds of billions of dollars for the US Treasury—is set to expire on Friday, Sept. 30.

Tarana is expected to supply gigabit fixed wireless for at least one or two of the biggest winning Rural Digital Opportunity Fund (RDOF) bidders; one of which is Nextlink. Tarana's new hardware will be able to use spectrum in the 5 GHz and 6 GHz bands, as well as new software that supports what the company calls G1x2 mode. That mode enables the new hardware or the previous version of the hardware to use up to 160 MHz of spectrum. The previous version of Tarana’s offering worked only in the 5 GHz band and could use only 80 MHz of spectrum.

NTT is building a private wireless network for the City of Las Vegas, Nevada. The new 5G network will be the most extensive private wireless network in the US. The City of Las Vegas intends for the network to serve as an open platform available to local businesses, government, and educational institutions. Shahid Ahmed, Group EVP of New Ventures and Innovation at NTT, said the network is currently in the testing stages and will be launched “in the next few weeks.” He specified that it’s not a direct-to-consumer service.

This study explores the current state of radio spectrum (spectrum) allocation in the US and how additional licensed spectrum will enable wireless providers to continue expanding 5G connectivity and unlock 5G-enabled innovation. 5G brings new promises of greater capacity, lower latency and faster speeds.

5G, and the technologies it can enable, are not promised to us. As those in rural America well know, 5G is not an inevitability, or simply a function of time and technological development. It is the product of purposeful effort and long-term planning. The capitalintensive 5G transition has been a decade in the making and we are poised to fully deploy 5G in C-Band spectrum, with the auction of the 3.45 GHz band in sight. But much work remains.

Tarana is releasing its next-generation fixed wireless access (ngFWA), representing a significant evolution of the company’s heralded G1 broadband solution. Tarana’s G1 ngFWA platform has been embraced by more than 190 broadband providers in 8 countries in its first year of commercial shipments. G1 base nodes sold to date are expected to cover 20 million households and will have the capacity to serve as many as 1 million subscribers when fully deployed in the coming months. Tarana’s next G1 releases will take two new directions.

SpaceX sent the message to the Federal Communications Commission after Globalstar—which is powering the iPhone 14’s satellite connectivity—urged the FCC to reject SpaceX's request for access to the 1.6/2.4GHz spectrum, which it also uses for its own satellite services. SpaceX plans on using the radio bands to power a mobile version of its Starlink satellite internet service capable of beaming data to cellular dead zones.

Many attempts to increase the flexibility of wireless spectrum rights meet objections that the method of reallocation will result in a windfall for corporate license holders. Far from being objectionable, however, allowing windfalls in spectrum reallocation creates virtuous incentives. Past restrictions on the supply of flexible-use rights to the spectrum have resulted in a rigid system, which is not in the public interest because the most productive uses of the spectrum change rapidly.

When I launched Broadcom in the early 1990s with the goal of revolutionizing digital connectivity, it was necessary to work closely with governments around the world, starting with cable set-top boxes.

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.