Citizens Band Radio Service (CBRS) shared spectrum – A new formula to enhance businesses’ efficiency and productivity leading to revenue growth

Being in the telecom industry for more than 18 years, I had the opportunity to collaborate with many large-scale organizations and enterprise in recent years. With the development of IoT and automation, large enterprises are already adopting these technologies to improve efficiency and to achieve higher productivity. In order to make this into reality, reliable data connectivity will be the backbone of any business. Some of industries such as manufacturing, automobiles, oil and gas and retail sectors have gone step forward setting up their own 4G/5G private networks. This raises a question, why would they go this far to invest on their own mobile network infrastructure for their automation adopted to improve the productivity and operational efficiencies. However, automation demands for low latency with uninterrupted wireless coverage around their premises.  

With my experience, I can say it was very critical for us, ours was a wireless service providing company and faced various challenges in providing seamless network connectivity using Wi-Fi or 4G networks as given below: 

• Traditional services provided by CSPs might not provide 100 percent coverage on their premises. 
• Unable to handle large and heavy data loads by CSP network or by Wi-Fi network i.e., network connect capacity issues. 
• Secured connectivity was always a concern. 
• Disconnection while traversing from one hotspot to another hotspot with Wi-Fi network. 
• Latency and QoE was not uniform across the entire network. 
• Communication challenges associated with multiple premises e.g., multiple manufacturing units. 

Now, with the announcement of Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum, I developed a sheer interest in this as I feel it could address many of these pain points. Moreover, organizations in today’s world are always demanding for 5G/LTE based solutions giving enough opportunity area for service providers like us to leverage CBRS (US) also called as local access license for certain spectrum/shared license spectrum in Europe to enable private connectivity with LTE and 5G networks. 

I believe, there are many commercial opportunities that can be capitalized upon to serve consumers and enterprise customers’ needs of going wireless: 

• Shared Spectrum Connectivity - Industries such as manufacturing, oil & gas, mining, educational institutions require wireless closed or private enterprise networks on a spectrum promising guaranteed services. For instance, the inception of COVID-19 crisis compelled us to lock indoors that led to various difficulties in imparting education to students and teachers located in their respective home especially in rural areas. A shared spectrum approach within 3.5GHz band can be used to deploy private LTE/5G network can provide secured connectivity with required broadband speeds at a much lower cost than traditional LTE. Many school districts are deploying local antennas connecting directly to in-house routers applying wireless connectivity to support live online lectures and ensuring a much convenient distance learning without limiting students’ access to education. This use case is a commercial opportunity for small organizations specializing in deploying DAS and CBRS networks. 
• Increase in Efficiency and Revenue - Recently, Ocado in UK deployed private LTE networks to power its robot-based fulfillment system that will manage robots moving at a faster pace around the center for serving online orders to customers. All these robots will be operated by LTE private network communicating with them at a low latency rate which is 10times/sec thus improving efficiency and increase in sales orders. This use case is a commercial opportunity for large scale organizations who are in online retail sector and other manufacturing units to boost efficiency and productivity.  

Another area that is expanding a lot, is the IoT space that really requires a dedicated network to operate in a secured manner. A case in point is of Nokia. It recently automated one of its base station (BS) factories using private LTE networks (4.9G) and enabled IoT analytics working on an edge cloud, automation of internal logistics through connected mobile robots, created a real-time digital twin of operational data. Implementing such a network resulted in improving productivity by 30% and curbed costs of product delivery to market by 50% adding to millions of euros in a single year. 

• Fixed Wireless Access – Working on SAS-enabled shared spectrum will enable us to build CBRS solutions and establish a robust network for businesses needing Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) points for transmitting data. We can utilize the 3.5 GHz band to create a highly reliable wireless networks offering cost-effective FWA due to less cable infrastructure at a low latency rate with real-time communication among various components of the network, cameras, sensors and industrial Internet of Things (IoT). It is an ideal use case for autonomous robots, vehicles to perform daily production for e.g., in mining industry. 
• Better Indoor and Outdoor Signals - For developing enterprise level networks based on a neutral host model, we can use CBRS solutions to improve indoor and outdoor connectivity. It is a perfect use case deployed in large venues like airports, stadiums, hospitals and skyscrapers. This is a commercial opportunity for CSPs and for small companies who provide indoor coverage. 

As per the research done by 5G Americas, CBRS has opened the market and will become a 60 billion USD industry soon as it makes the way to meet new digital business initiatives on wireless enterprises with verticals including manufacturing, mining, transportation, government, retail, healthcare, education and many more. With CBRS-based solutions, we expect to resolve data capacity and network coverage issues where Wi-Fi is insufficient and provide uncompromised network services to our customers and fulfil their business needs. Further, this next-generation of private network deployment with CBRS will definitely improve productivity and efficiency eventually leading to revenue growth for industries as well.