Google Gets Experimental License, Exploring Spectrum Access System
Google appears set to launch its own experimental network in the 2524-2625 MHz band, which could be a prototype for future operations in 3.5 GHz spectrum. The FCC launched a rulemaking in December aimed at opening the 3550-3650 MHz band for shared use and use by small cells. Google had no comment, a spokeswoman said Wednesday.
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Steven Crowley, a wireless engineer who has written about the Google experimental license on his blog, told us he believes Google may have the 3.5 GHz band in its sights. “It’s possible that Google would like to experiment in the 3.5 GHz band for the system it discussed in its filing, but thinks it would be too cumbersome to coordinate with both federal and private users now there,” Crowley said Wednesday. “For Google’s purposes, it may be technically ‘close enough’ to use the 2.5 GHz band it applied for and received conditional authorization to use. There is no significant federal usage of those bands -- Google can just go to one entity holding the authorization to use that spectrum. That entity appears to be Clearwire.” If Google wanted to experiment in the 3.5 GHz band it “would also have to deal with NTIA as well as the FCC, something that could take much more time,” Crowley said.
Google asked for in January, and in late March received, an experimental license (http://bit.ly/XsgT6b) from the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology to operate a small, experimental network at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters. The license expires April 1, 2015, and allows operations in the 2524-2546 and 2567-2625 MHz bands. Google’s application contained little information and an accompanying exhibit was given confidential treatment by the FCC.
But in a recent filing at the commission, on the future use of the 3.5 GHz band, Google described its own efforts to test a spectrum access system, which it calls an SAS. It does not mention the experimental license, but says the test is consistent with the spectrum sharing report released last summer by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (CD July 23 p1).
"Google has started preliminary work on a prototype SAS based on the three-tier hierarchical model proposed in the PCAST Spectrum Report,” Google told the FCC in reply comments on the 3.5 GHz band (http://bit.ly/16NeyWb). “This prototype will provide cloud-hosted secure interfaces to primary users of spectrum, secondary licensees, and [general authorized access] devices. In addition, Google is developing an experimental shared spectrum network that will enable cellular base stations and ‘best efforts’ devices to interact with the prototype SAS.” Google said its prototype system isn’t “complete,” but “includes several core features that should be included in production systems. The prototype SAS allows primary license holders to add or delete exclusion zones, as well as to enforce temporary suspension areas, all within parameters defined in the SAS to reflect the governing rules for the band.”