Next Year Could See Full 3.5 GHz Mobile Availability, CableLabs Says

Comcast and Charter Communications joining the CBRS Alliance will help create interest among major handset vendors for supporting the 3.5 GHz band, with end-user device availability being one of the issues that will dictate when the band is used commercially for mobile, said CableLabs Vice President-Core Innovations Pete Smyth in a blog post Thursday. He said commercial rollout also will be dictated by the availability of spectrum access systems (SAS), environmental sensing capacity (ESC) and commercial grade network equipment. AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile are looking at LTE deployment in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service band, he said. With Samsung's upcoming Galaxy 8 supposedly supporting band 42 and Sony announcing support of band 42 in an upcoming handset, "all of this bodes well for 2018," CableLabs said. It said SASs and ESCs are expected to be operational by year's end, which points to full spectrum availability next year.