The FCC Rethinks Citizens Broadband at the Eleventh Hour

The Federal Communications Commission is having second thoughts about the auctioned “middle layer” of the planned Citizens Broadband Radio Service at 3550-3700 MHz.

You may remember how this is all supposed to work, with three categories of users. The “Incumbent Access” (IA) users, already in place in the band, will have interference protection from all the others. Least protected are the General Access (GA) users, who will contend in real time with other GA users for whatever GA spectrum is available. In between are the Priority Access (PA) users, who will bid at auction for the privilege of on-demand access (except in IA protection zones).A “Spectrum Access System” (SAS) will assign frequencies to each user on the fly, implementing the various priorities. The SAS is still under development. In the meantime, the FCC is taking another look at the PA auctions.