WASHINGTON—Senator Deb Fischer (R-NE) and Senator Ben Ray Luján (D-NM), the bipartisan leaders of the Senate Commerce Committee’s Telecommunications and Media Subcommittee, have sent a letter to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) urging the agency to preserve the existing rules and power levels governing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band (3.55–3.70 GHz).
“CBRS’s low-power, shared-spectrum model has become vital infrastructure nationwide, with network hardware produced from American design, construction, and investment,” the letter noted. “Today, there are over 422,000 active CBRS radio devices deployed across the country. To put that in perspective, the entire U.S. wireless industry combined cumulatively operates nearly 250,000 macro cellular sites. This growth is not theoretical—CBRS is already deployed in more than 82% of U.S. counties that are predominantly rural, helping deliver cost-effective connectivity and closing gaps in unserved and underserved communities, including on Tribal Lands. Especially in rural areas, CBRS spectrum is critical for wireless internet service providers to serve customers over great distances. It also enables Tribes to deliver essential services—such as telehealth, distance learning, and other Tribal services—more economically and reliably.”
“Given the critical nature of this band, we urge the FCC to reject changes that would upend CBRS’s carefully calibrated mid-power operating model—including proposals to increase power levels or otherwise modify the technical rules in ways that raise interference risk, degrade service, `squeeze out' users, or move users to a different band,” the letter concluded. “Such changes would reduce spectrum efficiency and undermine the very facilities and community networks that rely on CBRS today.”
Article continues belowThe letter was applauded by Spectrum for the Future, a group supporting dynamic spectrum sharing that is backed by tech companies, wireless providers and others.
“CBRS is already delivering strong results for communities, businesses and public sector users across the country. That success is the result of more than a decade of significant private sector investments and intensive collaboration between federal agencies, the military and industry. It has worked so well at protecting the military that they recently showed more confidence in the technology by agreeing to relax some of the protection requirements—again a clear demonstration of the good-faith collaboration that CBRS has fostered," said Dave Wright, policy director at Spectrum for the Future in a statement. "Senator Fischer and Senator Luján correctly underscore the vital role CBRS is playing in connecting previously unconnected Americans in rural areas and Tribal lands, and its importance to the success of the BEAD program."
