

For the rest of the country, C Band won’t be accessible for users until December 2023. The first use of C Band is slated to begin in late 2021 in the 46 PEAs. The 380 megahertz of spectrum will help to support the wealth of 5G use cases expected for the mid-band, with a wide range of associated coverage possibilities enabled by high-power operation.

As the 3450 band remains in the formative rulemaking stage, the telecommunications industry is still in the process of determining when the full 100 megahertz will be available.īoth of the above-mentioned bands are capable of supporting high-power macro-cellular operation – with CBRS in the middle adding another 150 megahertz of spectrum, 70 megahertz of which is licensed, albeit at lower maximum power. The figure below depicts the Phase 1 and Phase 2 PEAs. Phase 2 will see the remaining PEAs available no later than the end of 2023. In the short term, Phase 1 will have 46 of the top 50 market areas (partial economic areas or PEAs) available for the C Band by the end of 2021 after existing incumbents are relocated. More specifically, the 3450-3550 MHz band (3450 band) and the C Band represent 380 megahertz of valuable mid-band spectrum, which should become available at approximately the same time, albeit with certain caveats. Taken together, these spectrum allocation activities have significant implications for 5G, both in the short and long term. Department of Defense (DoD) announced it was making 100 megahertz of contiguous mid-band spectrum in the 3450-3550 MHz band available for 5G. Indeed, the FCC recently concluded the CBRS PAL auction, while the U.S.

The recent FCC decision to auction 280 megahertz of mid-band spectrum (C-band) for flexible use, including 5G, wasn’t made in isolation. In this article, we’ll discuss how opening the C Band will help accelerate 5G network deployments across the United States. operator building a nationwide network with C Band spectrum will need to spend between $3 billion and $3.6 billion for the wireless equipment necessary to broadcast 5G signals in the band. Specifically, analysts estimate that each U.S. To utilize the C Band spectrum, 5G network deployments will require new infrastructure. At 280 megahertz, the C Band is the largest chunk of mid-band spectrum the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has made available to date in the United States. Opening the C Band for 5G networks frees up spectrum for a number of years and represents a major opportunity for mobile operators.
