By Roy Sun, CableLabs; Dorin Viorel, CableLabs; Wilhelm Keusgen, Technische Universität Berlin
5G Fixed Wireless Access (FWA) has been deployed by operators for several years. In the North American markets, Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) increased their market share at the expense of cable-based services of Multiple Systems Operators (MSOs). Conversely, MSOs also enter the FWA space, utilizing licensed, unlicensed, shared bands.
As the data demand keeps increasing, the spectrum resources become congested and more costly. The 6 GHz band from 5.925 to 7.125 GHz was released by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for unlicensed use in 2020 [1]. The lower-37 GHz band from 37 to 37.6 GHz and lower-42 GHz band from 42 to 42.5 GHz are being considered for sharing [2]. FWA networks typically use outdoor small cells and indoor cells to offload macro cells, and these FWA cells are more feasible to share the spectra. FWA use cases monetize under-utilized spectra becoming available as the result of the large channel bandwidth mid-band spectra.