CBRS isn’t living up to expectations: Dell’Oro Group

Research and consulting firm Dell’Oro Group has reduced its expectations for sales of equipment running in the 3.5GHz CBRS spectrum band. The firm said the fixed wireless access (FWA) portion of the market is developing as expected, but that things seem to be dragging in the areas of private wireless networking and mobile network augmentation.

“We still remain optimistic on the technology as a whole,” Stefan Pongratz, analyst at Dell’Oro Group, told Light Reading. “You could argue that we were too optimistic.”

However, “I would like to think that our expectations were rational,” he added.

Specifically, Pongratz said that Dell’Oro Group previously expected sales of CBRS-capable radio access network (RAN) equipment to rise from 2% of the overall RAN market in 2021 to fully 5% by 2026. However, he said the firm now believes CBRS RAN revenues will account for less than 5% of overall North America RAN revenues by 2026.

Pongratz explained that a number of FWA providers have embraced services in the CBRS spectrum band. For example, AT&T is using Samsung equipment to offer FWA in the CBRS spectrum band, and Frontier Communications and Mediacom Communications are also moving toward such services.

Sluggishness in mobile

However, Pongratz said Dell’Oro Group expected broader, faster sales of CBRS equipment among mobile network operators. Although he declined to name Verizon specifically, the operator has been on the forefront of using transmissions in CBRS spectrum to bolster its broader 4G network.

Indeed, Verizon was the biggest spender during the FCC’s 3.5GHz CBRS spectrum auction in 2020, doling out a total of almost $1.9 billion for 557 licenses in markets across the country. However, Verizon’s attention has since shifted following the massive $53 billion it spent in the FCC’s C-band spectrum auction last year. Verizon recently lit up C-band services across fully 95 million people.

Pongratz agreed that CBRS can add additional capacity to 4G mobile networks, but that operations in other spectrum bands “may be more beneficial.” He also pointed out that FCC rules currently prohibit high-power operations in CBRS spectrum, thus limiting the geographic reach of transmissions in the band.

To read the complete article, visit Light Reading.