Why talk about Private Cellular in Europe or Latin America? That was the question I was asking myself when I was invited to give a TENs Talk at WirelessLAN Professions Conference (WLPC) in Prague, Czech Republic and last week at WLPC Mexico City.
As I was preparing for my presentations, Celona shared a few documents online. The first shared document was the image below that was shared by David Callisch on LinkedIn.
Second was a section of the newly released CWNP C5S Course. Celona in coordination with CWNP created the course and had Dr. Avril Salter teach it. Here’s my slide referencing that C5S course material that I shared during my WLPC presentations about the possible spectrum options outside the United States.
At Mobility Field Day 8, I had the honor of being a delegate along side my Wi-Fi hero, Dr. Avril Salter. While there, we discussed Private Cellular internationally. Dr. Salter came from the Cellular world so her knowledge of the RF Spectrum is top of the class. We talked about spectrum allocations and some international regulations.
* Legal Disclaimer: I don’t understand all international laws and requirements. I’m only sharing information that others are sharing. If you want to pursue a Private Cellular network, do your research, get your own legal council, and make sure you are following all legal requirements of the regulatory bodies for the country you are seeking to build within.
Private LTE/5G Technologies vs Spectrum
The two pictures above have some differences. The reason is that the international laws are still in flux. A lot of countries are watching how the opening of the CBRS band pans out. The thing about cellular technologies is that like how we are starting to see Wi-Fi in the 6GHz band with Wi-Fi 6e, the technologies do not rely on the underlying spectrum.
As I’ve mentioned in the past when we started to build our LTE network at my day job, we started because we thought we had access to Band 41 spectrum. We later found out the FCC had taken that spectrum away, and so, we moved over to using the CBRS spectrum.
The LTE and now 5G Technologies do not care about the spectrum you use. As long as you are doing so legally. If you have access to some band of spectrum, it’s possible to look into building a private cellular network. Obviously the other requirement is access to the RAN equipment that supports the band and CPE or UE clients.
Private Cellular Spectrum Internationally
Once you decide to pursue a private cellular network, first thing you have to determine is spectrum access. The first map show several countries in Europe might have access to some spectrum for private cellular use cases. The second image talks more specifics about those options.
When it comes to spectrum, you have two options, Dedicated Private Spectrum or Leased Spectrum.
Dedicated Private Cellular is similar to CBRS. Here’s the options for Dedicated Spectrum according the CWNP C5S Courseware:
United States
- CBRS Band n48: 3550-3700MHz
Norway, United Kingdom
- Band n77: 3300-4200MHz
Brazil, Canada, Germany, Mexico, Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Turkey
- Band n78: 3300-3800MHz
Japan
- Band n79: 4400-5000MHz
The other option is leasing spectrum from someone else for private usage. Looks like a few European countries have additional options to lease some spectrum. The thing about leasing spectrum is that this option is much more widely available. These are known options, there may be other less known options that you can check on if you’re looking into building your own network depending on your country. T-Mobile leases Band 41 spectrum from one of the school district here in my state for their public network. Their lease is a similar idea as leasing spectrum for your private network. Here’s the Leased Spectrum options outside the United States again according to the CWNP C5S Courseware:
Australia, China, Czech Republic, France
- Band n78: 3300-3800MHz
Hungary, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Spain
- Band n78: 3300-3800MHz
- Band n53: 2483.5-2495MHz
WLPC Prague 2022
As I mentioned before, I was invited to present TENs Talks at WLPC Prague and WLPC Mexico. WirelessLAN Professionals record all their conference presentations and share them freely on their website and on YouTube. So we are able to relive the presentations and things that were shared. Here was my presentation that I gave at WLPC Prague.
After the conference, I was privileged to talk about my presentation with several people, including the great Peter Mackenzie. In my discussions with Peter, he was most interested to hear that someone is using Private Cellular. He mentioned that few organizations are discussing their installations publicly or many projects are in pilot only. He was also interested to understand the LTE/5G Protocols.
As I mentioned before, many countries and companies are watching how the CBRS band is managed and used before committing resources and money to building these networks. Celona has been fighting to educate people about the available spectrum options. Hopefully, Private Cellular networks continue to grow internationally with the available options.
My next post I’ll share my WLPC Mexico presentation (en Español) when they release it. I’ll also include some interesting information I learned from some of my contacts in Mexico about Private Cellular in that country. The information above doesn’t paint the whole picture about the obstacles that need to be overcome for private cellular to grow internationally.
