The CBRS Alliance is launching the OnGo brand today at its annual all-member meeting, where it’s also introducing a new OnGo certification program to support the burgeoning 3.5 GHz ecosystem in the U.S.
As you might guess, the “CBRS” term is a mouthful, but shorter than the Citizens Broadband Radio Service for which it stands. It became increasingly clear to members of the CBRS Alliance that they needed something simpler to communicate what the CBRS band does for their customers and potential clients.
“We think this is going to be an easier message for people to understand,” said Dave Wright, president of the CBRS Alliance. “To my mind, this is very similar to what the Wi-Fi Alliance has done with the Wi-Fi brand. That’s really what we’re seeking to do here.”
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Nine global test labs have gone through the training process to become Authorized Test Labs and more are expressing interest every day, according to Lisa Garza, director of marketing at Federated Wireless, which is undergoing the process of becoming a Spectrum Access System administrator.
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The CBRS Alliance has grown from six founding members to 89 members as of last week and it continues to grow at a good clip, Wright told FierceWirelessTech. Membership is varied, and Wright said he believes the membership is as diversified as what the original plan behind the Innovation Band was seeking.
“Our membership continues to diversify very rapidly,” he said. The CBRS efforts were supported early on by wireless and cable operators, traditional DAS and small cell companies and the other usual suspects.
“What I have seen is a broadening of our membership,” he said, with commercial property management, healthcare, hospitality and other sectors getting behind it. The alliance itself is conducting more marketing beyond just at wireless events, including things like the HITEC Houston show to talk about OnGo benefits for hotel property managers, for example.
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Just last month, the CBRS Alliance marked another milestone by publishing the Network and Coexistence Baseline Specifications that will enable deployment and coexistence of LTE in the band. The network specifications define how to deploy an LTE private network, LTE neutral host network, or a hybrid (private and neutral hosted network) using 3GPP standard LTE technology. They also include the use cases, requirements, architecture and LTE protocol configuration to support these network deployments.