What role does the Forum play?

In its Report and Order establishing rules for the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (“CBRS”) in the 3550 MHz band, the Commission observed that “a multi-stakeholder group focused on the complex technical issues raised by this proceeding could provide us with a wealth of valuable insights and useful information.”  The WInnForum has a long history of successfully forming and operating international multi-stakeholder groups and organization, and so in January of 2015 the Wireless Innovation Forum stood up the Spectrum Sharing Committee (SSC) to serve as a common industry and government standards body to support the development and advancement of CBRS Standards, leveraging The WInnForum unique qualifications in this area, including:

  • Incorporation and registration with the IRS as a 501(c)6 non-profit "business league",
  • Organization under the  National Cooperative Research and Production Act of 1993, as amended by the Standards Development Advancement Act of 2004 and registered with the US Government as a Standards Development Organization , 
  • Experience in working with the FCC, NTIA and other federal agencies with a history of acting as an honest broker in defining what is possible and where there are issues, 
  • Mature policies and procedures  that include an intellectual property rights property following industry best practices for establishing rules for managing contributed IP, and collaboration policies, including work group policies and procedures, project approval and balloting,

Most importantly, WInnForum has member representation from small, medium and large commercial companies, along with government, non-profit organizations and academic institutions each with the same rights and benefits. The participants of within Spectrum Sharing Committee include:

  • Developers and operators of SAS, wireless equipment and devices, and sensor systems
  • Operators and service providers interested in deploying in the spectrum
  • Suppliers of systems and components operating on this spectrum
  • Representatives of incumbent users including DoD/DISA, satellite operators, and utilities
  • General users of spectrum outside of main providers
  • Policy makers, academics, and researchers
  • Representatives from other standards groups where interfaces or joint work is desired or necessary

CBRS Standards

WInnForum's Spectrum Sharing Committee (SSC) is led by a steering group that guides the work of its working groups:

SSC Work product and public files to date can be found here.  

Working groups and their associated task groups develop standards, protocols and technical references in the phases listed below and per the SSC Roadmap.

Click here to see all status updates to the FCC.

The SSC is intended to facilitate interpretation and implementation of FCC rule making allowing industry and government parties to collaborate on implementation of a common, efficient, and well functioning ecosystem.

The main activities include:

  • Detailing common industry and government functionality and architecture for Spectrum Access Systems (SAS), sensors, and devices 
  • Interoperability requirements and protocol definitions allowing for open competitive and well-functioning systems 
  • Creating a common framework for testing and integration of components of spectrum sharing technologies .  And, setting the stage for  rapid certification and deployment with predictability,.
  • Detailing  requirements, processes, and methods to protect of incumbent users as required by the spectrum rules 
  • Operational procedures definition for the well -functioning of the system as it pertains to spectrum assignment, managements, and interoperability