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WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU AND OFFICE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY APPROVE FOUR SPECTRUM ACCESS SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS FOR FULL SCALE COMMERCIAL DEPLOYMENT IN THE 3.5 GHZ BAND AND EMPHASIZE LICENSEE COMPLIANCE OBLIGATIONS IN THE 3650-3700 MHZ BAND UNDER PART 96

I. INTRODUCTION

1. With this Public Notice, the Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) and the Office of Engineering and Technology (OET) (collectively, WTB/OET) of the Federal Communications Commission (Commission or FCC) certify CommScope, Federated Wireless, Inc. (Federated), Google and Sony, Inc. (Sony) as Spectrum Access System (SAS) Administrators in the 3.55-3.7 GHz band (3.5 GHz band) (collectively, SAS Administrators). WTB/OET, in consultation with the Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), have reviewed each SAS Administrator’s Initial Commercial Deployment (ICD) report, and they each have certified that each SAS Administrator has met the requirements in Part 96 of our rules and is authorized to make their SAS available for commercial use for a five-year term.

II. BACKGROUND

2. In the 2015 Report and Order, the Commission directed WTB/OET, in consultation with the DoD and NTIA, to oversee the review, certification, and approval of SASs in the 3.5 GHz band. The 2015 Report and Order required all prospective SAS Administrators to complete a two-stage review process prior to final certification. In the first stage, a prospective SAS Administrator must submit a proposal describing how its system will comply with all Commission rules governing the construction, operation, and approval of SASs and perform all core functions described in the 2015 Report and Order.

The second stage involves SAS testing both in a controlled lab environment and in a real-world setting. On December 21, 2016, WTB/OET conditionally approved the first wave of SAS Administrators, thus concluding the first stage of the review process.

3. As part of the second stage testing process, Amdocs, CommScope, Federated, Google, and Sony elected to collaborate with the Institute for Telecommunication Sciences (ITS), NTIA’s research and development arm, to complete the laboratory testing requirement. ITS completed its laboratory testing on May 3, 2019, and it subsequently provided the respective SAS Administrators with SAS laboratory test reports, which Amdocs, CommScope, Federated, Google, and Sony submitted for the Commission’s review in July 2019.

4. In order to comply with the field-testing requirement, each SAS Administrator also timely filed an ICD proposal with the Commission, which described its proposed short-term, limited geographic commercial deployment, and each later supplemented its proposal. On September 16, 2019, WTB/OET found that each SAS Administrator had satisfied the Commission’s SAS laboratory testing requirements, and they approved each SAS Administrator to begin ICD as described in their ICD proposals. In accordance with the ICD Approvals PN, each SAS Administrator notified the Commission of commencement of its ICD. After the requisite 30-day ICD period and consistent with the ICD Proposals Public Notice, each SAS Administrator filed its ICD report with the Commission in GN Docket 15-319, and each requested confidential treatment.12 WTB/OET, in coordination with NTIA and DoD, reviewed the ICD reports in detail.

READ MORE HERE: WIRELESS TELECOMMUNICATIONS BUREAU AND OFFICE OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY APPROVE FOUR SPECTRUM ACCESS SYSTEM ADMINISTRATORS FOR FULL SCALE COMMERCIAL DEPLOYMENT IN THE 3.5 GHZ BAND AND EMPHASIZE LICENSEE COMPLIANCE OBLIGATIONS IN THE 3650-3700 MHZ BAND UNDER PART 96

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