Wireless Innovation Forum issues next-generation CBRS standard

The Wireless Innovation Forum (WINNForum) on Jan. 23 announced its approval of a new Release 2 specification defining enhancements to the baseline CBRS Operational and Functional Requirements.

The Release 2 specification was prepared by the WInnForum’s Spectrum Sharing Committee CBRS Functional and Operational Requirements Working Group, chaired by Andrew Clegg of Google.

The Release 2 spec defines optional CBRS features and functionality that can be incorporated at any time, with special focus on supporting specific vertical markets and their deployments.

“Our new release of the CBRS standards opens the way for substantial additional innovation in the CBRS band,” said Clegg.

He added, “Now anyone can rapidly add features to CBRS simply by contributing a suitable appendix to the Release 2 specification, and, pending committee approval and appropriate certification requirements, the feature is ready for adoption by CBRS users, equipment manufacturers, and Spectrum Access System (SAS) Administrators, on demand.”

Per a WINNForum statement: "Based on the Release 2 additions, exciting emerging technologies can be considered and implemented. Examples include:

Single Frequency Group - A set of CBSDs [Citizens Broadband Radio Service Devices] that require a common radio frequency assignment and reassignment when frequency reassignment is necessary or preferred; and,

2D Antenna Patterns - Requirements on how CBSD two-dimensional antenna patterns should be specified and used by the SAS to calculate CBSD antenna gain in a certain direction, taking both horizontal and vertical separation into account.

The statement added, "Additional emerging technologies can be considered in subsequent releases. Development is already underway on additional features to be added to Release 2 very shortly. Other planned features include enhanced group handling, flexible grants and grant updates, indoor penetration loss measurements, refined propagation modeling, registration enhancements, and support for beamforming. The Release 2 specifications will include updates to the SAS to SAS and SAS to CBSD protocols to support these new features, and a Release 2 test specification allowing industry to self-certify against requirements that do not impact Part 96. [Further,] to address backward compatibility with the WInnForum Release 1 Baseline Standards, the only mandatory feature in Release 2 for a SAS or CBSD is to support the feature capability exchange between SASs and CBSDs."

“The Wireless Innovation Forum’s contribution to standards enabling activity on the CBRS band is essential as deployments accelerate in 2020,” noted Alan Ewing, Executive Director of the CBRS Alliance.

He added, “The changes introduced in the WInnForum Release 2 standards will better support CBRS Alliance efforts to enable OnGo private LTE and 5G networks to use a broad choice of end user devices.”

The document (WINNF-TS-1001) can be downloaded for free here: https://cbrs.wirelessinnovation.org/enhancements-to-baseline-specifications.

The SSC CBRS Release Plan, also approved by Forum Membership today, can be downloaded here: https://winnf.memberclicks.net/assets/CBRS/WINNF-SSC-0004.pdf.

The complete set of CBRS Baseline Standards can be downloaded here: http://bit.ly/CBRSBaselineStandards.

To learn more about The Wireless Innovation Forum, its meetings and membership benefits, or to become involved with the SSC, visit http://www.WirelessInnovation.org.

Learn more and register for events at https://cbrs.wirelessinnovation.org/.