With an eye toward OnGo commercialization in the fourth quarter, the CBRS Alliance is marking some key milestones as it celebrates its two-year anniversary.
The organization has already established the OnGo brand and developed the OnGo Certification Program, and it more recently announced the establishment of its Deployment and Operations (D&O) Working Group (WG).
This working group, the fifth for the alliance, will be focused on identifying, defining and implementing end-to-end deployment models and operational best practices for OnGo connectivity, including the interconnections between networks, network operators and roaming hubs.
The D&O Working Group is chaired by Piyush Raj, director of Technology Innovation at American Tower, and Boingo Wireless Chief Technology Officer Derek Peterson.
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“This incredible momentum we’ve achieved in a short two-year timespan is thanks to the energy and dedication of the working groups and member companies within the CBRS Alliance,” said Dave Wright, president of the CBRS Alliance, in a press release. “Today’s establishment of the D&O WG and achievement of our 100-member milestone are both evidence of continued progress toward the commercialization of OnGo.”
Wright told Fierce back in May that the organization was growing at a good clip; at that time, it was at around 89 members, up from the six founding members with which it started. Membership has broadened beyond the usual wireless industry suspects as well, and the ecosystem has expanded to include healthcare, hospitality, commercial property management and other sectors.
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CBRS Alliance representatives visited the FCC on Aug. 21 to provide an update on the alliance’s activities and to discuss the public notice for first-wave Spectrum Access System (SAS) administrator applicants to submit proposals for initial commercial deployments. They talked about the CBRS Alliance’s Authorized Test Labs (ATL), the number of devices that have been submitted for certification and an interoperability event to be hosted by CableLabs later this month in Louisville, Colorado.
According to the FCC filing (PDF), 12 devices have been submitted for OnGo certification; three devices have successfully completed OnGo ATL testing and are awaiting further review.
The CBRS industry representatives also expressed concern (PDF) about applications for very high-power weather radars operating in the 3500-3550 MHz band on a secondary basis and their impact on the Environmental Sensing Capability (ESC) sensors that are necessary for proper functioning of CBRS services operating on a primary basis.
The Wireless Innovation Forum (WInnForum), which has worked hand-in-hand with the CBRS Alliance, previously (PDF) told the commission an interference protection regime needs to be in place to address the growing presence of commercial weather radars used by local news broadcasters.
They were concerned the high-power radar systems would cause problems for the ESC networks designed to detect the presence of military radar and cause CBRS operations to get shut down or lead to false positive detections.
Even though the FCC has been reviewing the rules for CBRS, the industry expects the General Authorized Access (GAA) portion of the band can be used this year if all continues to go as planned.