Three Reasons Not to Overlook CBRS — Even in the Era of BEAD
The summer of 2023 has been a busy time for those who are working to advance smart and connected communities. On June 26, 2023, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) announced the state-based allocations for its $42.45B Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program. For State Broadband Offices and the broadband champions working in local government or at a community anchor intuition (CAI) such as a hospital, library, or school, the NTIA announcement must constitute the all-consuming “bang” of a starting gun.
Indeed, these folks must be excused if they missed an a far more circumspect announcement from NTIA regarding a Technical Report on Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS). That said, the report and the public comments filed in response to the report are not to be overlooked. NTIA’s May 2023 report and the related comments paint a poignant and encouraging picture of the rapid growth of CBRS deployment and the impact of CBRS networks on communities across the country. Although CBRS deployments are not eligible for BEAD funding, Broadband Champions will be wise to evaluate the value and cost-effectiveness of CBRS deployments as they prioritize BEAD-funded broadband deployment projects in their community. In this post, I highlight three reasons that Broadband Champions — even those rightly consumed by the once-in-a-generation BEAD Funding — should take note of recent developments related to CBRS.
#1. CBRS Deployments are happening — and happening at scale.
Somehow skeptics of CBRS continue to question the positive impact of CBRS deployments, claiming that there is “low market demand and a lack of innovative use cases.” Counter to statements such as this, a key finding of the May 2023 NTIA report is that between April 2021 and January 2023 CBRS deployments grew at a steady rate with a quarterly increase of 12.0% and a total increase of 121% over the analysis period. The NTIA report provides independent confirmation that CBRS deployments are really happening and that demand for CBRS deployments is growing. According to NTIA data, over the last three years approximately 300,000 CBRS Access Points have been deployed.
Research released by the OnGo Alliance in March 2023 illustrates the growing CBRS ecosystem of operators, equipment providers and technology installers.
· More than 40 CBRS equipment vendors
· More than 4000 installers
· More than 900 different operators leveraging freely available CBRS Spectrum (GAA)
The OnGo Alliance data illustrate a rich CBRS ecosystem of customers and providers. The NTIA CBRS report and comments on the report filed by organizations including the School Health and Libraries Broadband Coalition (SHLB) illustrate that the CBRS ecosystem includes a wide array of organizations — manufacturers, educational institutions, local governments, energy and utility companies and broadband providers of all sizes.
2. CBRS Deployments are well-suited to expanding connectivity options in rural communities
Providing broadband service in rural communities that is at-once fast, robust and affordable is an enduring challenge in the United States. According a Pew research report from 2021,the gap in broadband adoption has narrowed over the last decade but a stubborn digital divide in broadband uptake persists between rural, suburban and urban adults. Encouragingly, the NTIA CBRS report includes some notable findings about CBRS deployment in rural counties with relatively low population density. The NTIA researchers found that 70% of all active CBRS devices are deployed in rural census blocks. In total, NTIA concluded that CBRS devices are deployed in counties with a population of approximately 232 million.
According to industry analysts, there are two primary technical reasons that CBRS deployments are well-suited to serve rural communities that historically have been underserved with critical broadband connectivity. First, the spectrum band assigned to CBRS has favorable propagation characteristics and advances in new technologies including Massive MIMO enable broadband operators to take advantage of the available CBRS spectrum more fully. Second, CBRS deployments benefit from advances in Fixed Wireless Access (FWA). Using FWA technologies, operators can alleviate the need to lay cable or fiber — enabling broadband providers a more cost-effective and expedient way to deliver fast and robust internet access to rural communities.
In addition to the technical advantages of CBRS, there are also critical regulatory advantages that permit both smaller and nontraditional providers to leverage CBRS to expand broadband availability in their communities and service areas. As NCTA — The Internet and Television Association points out in comments submitted to NTIA, CBRS enables the deployment of robust services to unserved and underserved areas by facilitating smaller and non-traditional providers’ use of the band through dynamic spectrum access, county-size licenses, and lower power levels. These attributes provide flexibility and serve to encourage all different types of entities access to licenses, which historically have been cost-prohibitive to all but a few, large nationwide broadband providers.
In 2022, two notable examples illustrate that smaller and non-traditional broadband operators are indeed using CBRS to expand and enhance broadband service to new customers.Mercury Broadband, a provider with operations in Kansas, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan and Avista Utilities, an energy utility in Washington, Montana, Idaho, and Alaska — moved forward with CBRS deployments to expand their rural broadband footprint. According to Mercury Broadband’s CEO Garret Wiseman, “everyone should have access to stable, high-speed Internet service, no matter their location, and with CBRS, we can extend our wireless network to more hard-to-reach areas.” In the Avista CBRS deployment, the utility’s CBRS network access is both improving the utility’s operations and providing customers with a new choice in rural broadband.
#3. Community Anchor Institutions including K-12 Schools, Libraries, Universities, Hospitals are using CBRS networks to advance their missions.
In November 2022, I interviewed Brett Lasher, Private Wireless Lead for Cox Communications, about a smart parks project in Las Vegas, Nevada. Brett highlighted that the City of Las Vegas and Cox Communications were committed to an “all of the above” approach to meeting the connectivity needs of the residents of Las Vegas. By “all of the above” I understood him to mean, fiber and coax, wired and wireless, Wi-Fi and CBRS — Cox and the City of Las Vegas would consider, evaluate and select the technologies that are best suited for the Smart Park use case.
Comments filed in response to NTIA the report provide evidence that forward-looking organizations recognize the value of CBRS deployments and using CBRS deployments as the appropriate connectivity technology to realize new opportunities and overcome vexing challenges. I profiled JBG Smith’s use of CBRS in a post earlier this year. In 2021, John Deere announced plans for a major investment in CBRS deployments in order to improve connectivity in its manufacturing plants. Filings submitted by SHLB, WifiForward, and US Ignite, Public Knowledge put forth compelling evidence that Community Anchor Institutions (CAIs) are similarly leveraging CBRS deployments to meet their mission. The Veteran Administration is using CBRS deployments as a cost-effective and technically feasible avenue to improve healthcare for veterans. Universities including Northern Arizona and Cal Poly are using CBRS. Additionally K-12 school districts in Fort Worth and Fresno are all using CBRS because the technology provides connectivity solutions that were heretofore unavailable or prohibitively expensive.
Final Thoughts
Surely, these exciting deployments by CAIs represent the tip of the iceberg. And It’s the example of these initial CAI deployments of CBRS that provide a final answer to the question posed at the start of this post — why should Broadband Champions busy with BEAD care about CBRS? Even with the once-in-a-generation funding provided via BEAD, resources must be used effectively and efficiently. Communities need to choose selectively the technological tools they use. The NTIA report should give broadband champions in communities across this country assurance that CBRS deployments are a viable and valuable new tool in their toolkit. Even if CBRS deployments are not eligible for BEAD funding, it is important for broadband champions to assess the strategic role CBRS can play in expanding connectivity in their communities and include CBRS in their communities’ connectivity roadmaps. Communities that evaluate and select the technologies that are best suited for their needs will ultimately see the greatest impact from projects funded by BEAD.
About this Medium Site
On this Medium site, I explore an array of topics related to the transformative power of smart and connected communities. A central question for this observer of the so-called smart community movement: how will municipalities, real estate developers, universities and other leading organizations develop, deploy and support smart and connected community projects at scale?
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