Insightful discussion between Dean Bubley, independent industry analyst covering 5G, Wi-Fi, telecom business models and regulations, and Ashish Jain, leading industry expert in wireless enterprise, on the evolution of spectrum sharing, CBRS innovation, and the path toward dynamic spectrum allocation
Ashish Jain, CEO of KAIROS Pulse and Co-founder of Private Wireless PRO, sits down with industry analyst Dean Bubley to discuss the future of shared spectrum. With over two decades of experience challenging conventional thinking about spectrum, Bubley has become a prominent voice in wireless communications. He is regularly cited in prominent publications for his insights on 5G, Wi-Fi, and telecom business models. In this comprehensive interview, Jain and Bubley explore how shared spectrum approaches like CBRS are revolutionizing wireless deployments and what the future holds for dynamic spectrum sharing.
Breaking Away from Traditional Spectrum Assumptions
Ashish Jain: Dean, you’ve been vocal about what you call the “reflexive assumption” of exclusive high-powered spectrum. What’s driving this shift in thinking about spectrum allocation? As someone who’s been tracking the private networks space extensively, I’m seeing this evolution firsthand, where the traditional one-size-fits-all approach simply isn’t meeting the diverse needs of modern enterprises.
Dean Bubley: We’re moving from a world where we assume that all wireless connectivity is uniform and ubiquitous – particularly cellular connectivity – to one where there are highly localized specific requirements either localized in place or in time, whether that’s for enterprise, whether that’s for fixed wireless access, or whether it’s for things like audio visual systems at an event.
Essentially, we’re getting to a world where we’ve got a layer of connectivity from the public mobile networks. Increasingly, we’re going to have another layer from public satellite networks as well. But we then have a requirement in private buildings or private campus sites for particular requirements, either in terms of the technical characteristics or in terms of the business and payment model.
On the supply side, we’re getting to a world where it is being democratized to enable you to create your own connectivity whether that’s Wi-Fi, which we’ve had for years, or cellular or other mechanisms either in terms of easier equipment software-driven approaches and also a vastly expanding range of applications use cases which means that one size-fits-all approach doesn’t work. Some forms of sharing, in my view, becomes increasingly important as we get to this heterogeneous world of different organizations wanting spectrum and networks.
Global Spectrum Sharing Landscape
Ashish Jain: That’s a fascinating perspective that aligns with what I’m observing in the market. The rising adoption of cellular by enterprises is undeniable, but there’s still a significant disparity globally in spectrum offerings. While the US has been leading with the CBRS approach from a spectrum sharing perspective, we don’t see that model replicated as widely outside the US yet. How do innovations like the CBRS model compare globally, and what does this mean for international adoption?
Dean Bubley: Globally, there are somewhere between 40 and 50 countries that have some way of getting spectrum for local cellular private 4G or 5G networks. The US, with CBRS, is probably the only one with proper dynamic access with a sensing function and database to manage the relationship with incumbents – the three-tier model that CBRS has. So, I think the US is leading in terms of dynamic access.”
Most other countries have what I call administrative processes for obtaining spectrum. In the UK, we have a large tranche of spectrum between 3.8 and 4.2 GHz plus some other bits, but you essentially have to fill in a form and apply for them, which can be relatively quick, but we’re talking days and weeks rather than seconds and minutes.
The US model of a database-driven approach is quite complicated and expensive to replicate elsewhere. However, the general underlying principle of making spectrum available for factories or events or local municipalities or healthcare and education institutions, oil and gas, energy, and so on – I think that’s starting to become more uniform.”
CBRS as a Dynamic Spectrum Pioneer
Ashish Jain: Do you see shared spectrum approaches being critical for the US to maintain its competitive edge?
Dean Bubley: Yes, actually, and I think that it really surprises me how few people in the wider wireless and policy sphere recognize that CBRS, which is now on its second iteration and they’re looking at the third version, is a preeminent example of this database dynamic model for allocating or permitting spectrum in particular use cases in particular locations.”
But I think CBRS is exemplar of a particularly important solution. Spectrum can be shared, everything from a second-by-second to decades long. If you’re a utility network, you probably want to have a 10, 20, 30, 40-year investment horizon, whereas if you’ve got peak periods and you want to have maybe indoor coverage or extra capacity, it might be by the second, by the minute, by the hour for an event.
Ashish Jain: That’s an interesting point about the dynamic nature of spectrum allocation itself being dynamic to adjust to different needs. Could operators participate in a dynamic spectrum sharing marketplace in the future? I envision a scenario where everyone contributes whatever spectrum isn’t being used to a dynamic marketplace where it can be allocated for different uses when available.
Dean Bubley: I think you will find that in some bands in some places. You’ve got pooling as well as sharing, so there might be different models. You’ve also got a secondary market for license sales and leasing as well. Operators in the US, some of them use CBRS, both PAL licenses and, in some cases, GAA.
The carriers’ systems integration and business solutions units often participate in the market for local spectrum. However, the mothership – the group that runs the main national network – might be more conservative about truly dynamic spectrum participation due to requirements around testing, integration, and quality of service guarantees.
Spectrum Sharing and 6G Evolution
Ashish Jain: You’ve stated that spectrum sharing will be key for 6G. What specific advancements in spectrum sharing technologies or regulatory frameworks do you think are essential to realize this vision?
Dean Bubley: When we talk about 6G, there’s still a lot to be determined both in terms of what it’s for and what the standards will look like. We want to focus on what problems we want 6G to fix, and one of those is around ubiquitous connectivity and coverage, which will include remote areas, aerial connectivity, and especially in-building connectivity.
I think there’s going to be a few different sharing mechanisms that apply to the 6G era. One is going to be around sharing for indoor connectivity for neutral host or shared infrastructure models. This can be done either on a static basis – for example, China has a model where they have 100 megahertz of spectrum for indoor use shared between three network operators – or it can be more like a CBRS neutral host model where the indoor capability is shared between different operators as tenants.
The 6 GHz Spectrum Battle
Ashish Jain: Let’s shift from 6G as a generation to 6G as the 6 GHz band. Where do you see the relationship between spectrum sharing approaches like CBRS and spectrum sharing approaches like 6 GHz? How can they coexist and solve many of the wireless challenges for enterprises?
Dean Bubley: 6 GHz is a very hot topic around the world and has been for the last 2-3 years – a huge source of very fractious debate in different parts of the world as to whether it’s going to be made available for licensed usage or unlicensed or a mix of the two.”
In the US, the whole 1200 MHz has been made available for unlicensed use. “I think it would be very difficult for the FCC to turn around and try to change the rules at this stage, given I’ve seen one estimate that there’s going to be 150 million 6 GHz Wi-Fi devices shipping in the US this year.
I expect that the 3.5 CBRS band, probably with GAA, will be great for things like fixed residential access for WISPs, and then people might use 6 GHz with AFC for enterprise-grade gigabit-class connectivity for branch offices or maybe backup for SD-WAN.
AI’s Impact on Wireless Traffic and Spectrum Demand
Ashish Jain: These days, we cannot discuss any technology without AI. How do you see AI impacting wireless traffic and consequently the demand for different types of spectrums?
Dean Bubley: There’s currently no sign of any increase in either mobile or indeed fixed access network traffic from AI. In fact, you could make an argument that it’s actually reduced traffic. If you’d asked us 3-4 years ago what half a billion people would be using that they weren’t already, you’d probably have said AR/VR. Instead, we’re all using ChatGPT with five lines of text rather than immersive video and heavy uplink.
All of the AI traffic at the moment is either inside or between data centers – it’s in the core of the network. Some private networks are using AI for things like video inspection and quality control in production. So, I think that AI applications may well drive the CBRS market for private networks much quicker than they drive any change at all on the public networks.
Where you might see more traffic from AI is uplink video, especially for things like inspection cameras in a factory. What that might also drive is the need for very localized networks with a different uplink to downlink ratio, and that lends itself to private networks and a separate spectrum band.
Cognitive Radio and AI-Driven Spectrum Management
Ashish Jain: Do you see AI driving the need for more unlicensed and shared spectrum, or will it still necessitate significant exclusive licensed bands? How can AI play a role in driving more optimal spectrum use through shared spectrum technologies?
We’ve had the concept of cognitive radio for many years – the idea being that the radio essentially is smart and seeks out different bands and uses spectrum opportunistically. What AI does is it makes the cognitive part of cognitive radio a bit more real. We’re able to model the interference effects and dynamically jump between different spectrum bands if we have access to them.
I would quite like to see almost like a spectrum sharing generation approach where we have a 5-year or 10-year cadence for spectrum sharing concepts, which you can then tie predictable regulation to. You could then tie the R&D cycles to that. You could start creating product categories, you can get investment, and it would turn it into something that looks a little bit more like the 4G, 5G, 6G or the Wi-Fi 6, 7, 8 cycles, but for spectrum sharing.
Regulatory Challenges and Future Policy Needs
Ashish Jain: What are the most significant regulatory or policy changes needed to unlock the full potential of spectrum sharing beyond CBRS?
Dean Bubley: One of the things being looked at in the US is what’s called highly dynamic spectrum sharing because, at the moment, most spectrum sharing is with static or fairly predictable or slow-moving incumbent users. Much harder if the incumbent is an aircraft or a moving vehicle or a person—I think that’s the next thing you need to reduce the sensing and awareness cycle.
I think there would probably need to be more geographic granularity in some cases or wide area geographies in others, which probably translates to both power and location specifications. One of the challenges with CBRS at the moment is that the PAL licenses were made available on a county-sized area, which is okay if you’re a carrier or cable company, but if you’re a manufacturer with 17 sites or a hotel chain with a thousand sites, you aren’t able to do that.
I think there’s some mechanism for having carveouts of smaller campus-sized areas for a university or a warehouse or a port or an airport. I think that will be a really valuable addition.
Protecting Existing Spectrum Investments
Ashish Jain: Given recent legislative developments, what would your recommendations be if you were advising the FCC on spectrum policy?
Both CBRS and 6 GHz are both sort of porcupine bands – they’re both very spiky and very difficult to try to convert or change for different reasons. If you think about who’s using CBRS at the moment, it’s a lot of rural WISPs that are serving underserved communities. It’s serving industries like oil and gas, utilities, agriculture, healthcare, and manufacturing, which are economically important and socially important.
It would be very difficult to come along and say, actually, we’re going to uproot all these networks from your new gigafactory or your oil field, and we’re going to try and transpose that to some other band with no ecosystem, no devices. The damage economically, politically, and reputationally to some of the operators that are positioning themselves as friends of enterprises or rural communities would lose trust over that.
I would recommend that the FCC look at other options. The most obvious one is the 4 to 4.2 GHz range, and then no one talked about whether there’s anything you can do with the 4.4 to 4.9 range, and there are a couple of other bands as well.
Ashish Jain: That’s very well said. There’s tremendous deployment happening in CBRS. That would be quite detrimental to the whole reputation and confidence in the government from enterprises and even operators who might think, “Okay, my spectrum can be gone tomorrow, even if I bought it.”
Dean Bubley: I agree!The stakes are high: If you start changing the rules for CBRS only a few years after you’ve set them up, that potentially puts an extra risk factor on any spectrum band. Billions and billions of dollars have gone into this ecosystem to be ready, and there’s a tremendous amount of deployment happening in CBRS.
Looking Ahead
As spectrum sharing technologies continue to evolve, this insightful discussion highlights both the tremendous potential and the challenges ahead. The success of CBRS has demonstrated that dynamic spectrum sharing can work at scale, but realizing the full potential of these technologies will require careful policy coordination, technological innovation, and protection of existing investments.
The future of wireless communications lies not in the traditional model of exclusive spectrum licenses, but in the intelligent, dynamic sharing of spectrum resources to meet diverse and localized needs. As we move toward 6G and beyond, the lessons learned from CBRS will be crucial in shaping a more flexible and efficient spectrum landscape.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length while maintaining the substance of the conversation.
