Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Successfully Tests CBRS Band 48 Spectrum in LTE Carrier Aggregation

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Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) Successfully Tests CBRS Band 48 Spectrum in LTE Carrier Aggregation

Verizon Communications Inc. (NYSE:VZ) in partnership with Qualcomm Technologies Inc., Ericsson, and Federated Wireless has confirmed the first ever use of CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) band 48 Spectrum in LTE. The use of the spectrum according to the carrier should go a long way in advancing work on emerging spectrum bands.

CBRS Band 48 Deployment

The CBRS band tested was made up of 150MHZ of 3.5 GHz spectrum which until now has been restricted to the federal government. Verizon and its partners say they were able to use LTE advanced feature to demonstrate LTE with carrier aggregation while carrying wireless traffic.

Set up in Ericsson lab, the demonstration comprised of end-to-end CBRS communication flow using 2X20 MHz LTE carriers. Ericsson provided the band 48 Radio Dot System as the QUALCOMM, Inc. (NASDAQ:QCOM) subsidiary provided LTE Modem device.

“We are excited to demonstrate the support for new types of spectrum in Snapdragon LTE modems. The use of LTE Advanced with carrier aggregation will help enable the use of new CBRS shared spectrum to offer higher network capacity, and ultimately, higher speed to users than currently available,” said Joe Glynn, Vice President, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc.

The end-to end CBRS deployment according to Federated Wireless CEO, Iyad Tarazi, marks an important milestone in the race to make the technology commercially viable. The executive expects Verizon to soon be able to enhance customer experience using the wireless network innovation.

Carriers FCC Plea

Verizon has already started to lobby the Federal Communications Commission to lift restrictions on the use of CBRS band as a way of making it more commercially viable especially for 5G deployments. The company just like other carriers is pushing for longer license terms similar to those of traditional wireless licenses.

Longer license terms according to the carriers would make it easy for them to secure long term returns on deployments which the current three-year license terms may not be able to support. According to the carriers, unless the agency adjusts the current rules, CBRS Spectrum technology may struggle to attract much-needed investments.

Verizon stock was down by 0.14% in Monday’s trading session to end the day at $48.61 a share.