• August 26, 2019

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Amazon has recently made at least its second application with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for a Special Temporary Authority (STA). If granted, this license would allow the company to operate in California’s CBRS band for six months. Amazon seeks to test and analyze the performance of new 3.5 GHz (3550 MHz to 3700 MHz) wireless devices in Sunnyvale, California.

Through this process, Amazon aims to obtain “sufficient data to determine whether to continue and expand research into CBRS technologies at other locations” by using radio support to test prototype (“MO and Temporary FX”) devices.

Amazon has partnered with Athonet, Ruckus Networks, and Federated Wireless – who are key players within the US’s CBRS market – to deploy LTE networks that are controlled via a cloud platform from Amazon Web Services (AWS). The quartet plans on a “fully cloud-native private mobile network solution for developers, ISV’s, telecom operators, public sector and enterprises for quick deployment of Industrial IoT applications, such as real-time surveillance, smart meters and worker safety monitoring.”

In December, an AI-enabled video camera was showcased at an annual AWS developer event in December called re:Invent. The products used were AWS DeepLens cameras, CBRS gateways from Ruckus, an LTE/5G spectrum controller from Federated Wireless, and a private LTE network from Athonet.

In addition, according to a statement by Federated Wireless, “The DeepLens cameras run machine learning models for object recognition and leverage secure, reliable connectivity that can support a large number of devices in an interference-free environment. LTE over CBRS was the perfect choice to connect a large number of cameras in a single room without impacting throughput.”

At New York based Cowan, financial analysists were quoted in February on the topic of CBRS’ particular appeal as an indoor coverage resource for cloud companies:

“This by itself is why companies like Amazon and Google are so interested in the CBRS band, as it could ultimately enable them to build out an IoT platform that would feed back into their cloud platforms, thus enabling them to create a turnkey IoT solution that completely bypasses the incumbent wireless providers.”

Amazon has also joined the Dynamic Spectrum Alliance as a charter member, which contributes to its support for the group advocating for spectrum sharing in order to provide opportunities that include unlicensed access and providing support for policies such as the use of television white spaces to bridge the digital divide.