Author Archives: Laura Klebanow

Yesterday, the New America Foundation held an insightful event exploring the future of spectrum sharing and how frameworks like the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) are promoting innovation.

Michael Calabrese, Director, Wireless Future/New America, provided an update on CBRS adoption. There are now over 128,000 active CBSD radios and Priority Access Licenses grew 17% each month in 2022. While still early, progress has been promising so far. Calabrese emphasized the CBRS rules are dynamic, not static. He encouraged stakeholders to provide feedback to the NTIA to evolve CBRS over time.

Jason Wallin from John Deere discussed deploying private 5G using CBRS to support their Industry 4.0 transformation. With 20x more connected devices in facilities starting in 2019, they realized quickly that private cellular and CBRS would be crucial, especially for rural locations. Now private 5G is standard for any new North American facility. 80% of connections rely on private cellular due to IoT demands. They use neutral host networks to avoid needing DAS in each facility.

Vardahn Chaudhry from JBG Smith highlighted investments in fiber and CBRS to power smart cities. In February, Federated Wireless announced an expanded partnership with JBG Smith to innovate and deploy private 5G networks at National Landing. As part of JBG Smith’s $25.3 million investment in the CBRS spectrum, Federated and JBG are collaborating to develop a converged digital infrastructure platform to deliver advanced connectivity across National Landing.

JBG is building a dark fiber network across neighborhoods instead of individual buildings to stimulate growth. This anchors a carrier-neutral data center to serve businesses. JBG is focused on evangelizing CBRS in urban areas and testing sub-leasing Priority Access Licenses.

Federated Wireless joined as a foundational service provider on the platform to offer private wireless solutions at scale for a range of industries located in the area. JBG and Federated will also create an interoperable 5G private network showcase leveraging AWS to demonstrate next-gen technologies like IoT, AI, robotics, and more.

As part of this initiative, Federated Wireless will relocate its headquarters to National Landing, occupying 36,000 square feet of office space in one of JBG Smith’s buildings. This partnership highlights the momentum behind private 5G powered by shared spectrum and innovative collaboration between companies like Federated Wireless and JBG Smith.

Philip Neufeld from Fresno Unified School District discussed discovering 50% of students lacked adequate connectivity. They have extended access by bringing fiber backhaul into neighborhoods and deploying LTE networks using CBRS spectrum. This helps close the digital divide resulting from decades of disinvestment in broadband.

Federated Wireless Vice President of Legal Advocacy Jennifer McCarthy, who moderated one panel and participated in another, touched on how new technologies that enable more advanced dynamic spectrum sharing will only increase in importance as demand grows.

McCarthy’s insights highlighted how Federated Wireless has played a leading role in making CBRS a reality. The company’s Spectrum Controller is key for enabling enterprises and other organizations to take advantage of shared spectrum through CBRS. Federated Wireless continues to innovate in this area to expand access to spectrum, fuel innovation, and power the next generation of wireless connectivity.

`The New America Foundation event demonstrated the growing momentum behind shared spectrum models like CBRS. Jennifer McCarthy’s participation showcased Federated Wireless’ critical involvement in developing groundbreaking approaches to spectrum management that balance the needs of all stakeholders. As more organizations realize the benefits unlocked by CBRS, McCarthy and Federated Wireless will continue leading the way.

The event illustrated the momentum behind CBRS and Federated Wireless’ critical involvement in enabling spectrum sharing to expand 5G connectivity.

Discover our CBRS Spectrum Controller. 

While Federated Wireless’s partnership with T-Mobile and AWS was front and center at Cal Poly’s converged 4G/5G wireless network ribbon-cutting on May 25, the full ecosystem of partners powering the innovative network went far beyond what met the naked eye.

In fact, other major stars of the show were firmly fixed behind the scenes of Cal Poly’s private wireless network with Neutral Host 2.0™ for carrier extension, which operates in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) band and uses a communication hub running on AWS Snowball Edge device to support private connectivity services provided by the university and connectivity for T-Mobile subscribers.

A unique, best-in-class network comprised of multiple layers of services intended to deliver the most data-intensive, cutting-edge use cases demands best-in-class, innovative hardware and software providers to support and manage it.

Core network provider Druid, a global leader in specialized core network software, provided the 4G/5G packet core and neutral host gateway that sit at the heart of the converged solution. Complementing it, Airspan CBRS radios were carefully chosen due to their versatility in supporting both 4G and 5G networks. With their scalability, interoperability, and adaptability to both indoor and outdoor settings, the radios ensure seamless connectivity across all areas of Cal Poly’s campus.

Out front at the ribbon-cutting were a number of cutting-edge demonstrations running on Cal Poly’s supercharged network. GPS-enabled, battery-free IoT Pixel tags and sensors produced by the innovative IoT platform provider Wiliot were being used to show next-generation asset tracking and temperature monitoring in real time.

Wiliot’s IoT Pixels enable every object to become intelligent. By integrating machine learning and artificial intelligence in the cloud, the Wiliot Platform provides advanced sensing capabilities such as temperature and location. The Pixels wirelessly connect objects to the Internet using a network of Bluetooth-enabled devices such as smartphones and access points.

Cal Poly students demonstrated the cutting-edge augmented reality (AR) work instruction software Taqtile, which enables immersive, interactive AR experiences that support hands-on learning.

Donning Magic Leap AR headsets and wielding Magic Leap controllers, students illustrated how Taqtile combines AR technology with intelligent software solutions to deliver dynamic work instructions in real time. By overlaying digital information onto the physical world, Taqtile enabled students to receive step-by-step guidance, contextual information, and visual cues directly in their field of view.

The AR-driven approach to work instruction software empowers students to perform complex tasks with greater accuracy and speed while participating in hands-on learning. Taqtile is also empowering Cal Poly’s teaching teams, by providing robust analytics and reporting capabilities that enable detailed insights into user interactions, completion rates, task durations, and other proficiency indicators.

The result of the robust ecosystem of partners that converged to create Cal Poly’s innovative new network? Use cases that are as innovative and broadly applicable as they come.

To provide enhanced connectivity and safety across campus, T-Mobile service can be accessed using the 4G neutral host over CBRS to enhance the coverage experience in places where it’s hard for the cell signal to reach, including indoor areas like Cal Poly’s state-of-the-art William and Linda Frost Center for Research and Innovation building and remote outdoor areas like the Poly Canyon hiking trails. This coverage ensures that students have mobile connectivity and can make a 911 call if needed.

Students can now easily self-provision their mobile devices with an embedded subscriber identity model (eSIM) to stream class videos and use data-intensive applications through unmetered broadband over the private wireless network.

Advanced 5G innovation and research is enabled with high-speed, ultra-low-latency 5G connectivity on Cal Poly’s private wireless network. This connectivity is what made it possible for students to run the Taqtile software they demonstrated at the event.

The partner ecosystem responsible for delivering Cal Poly’s powerful new network represents far more than “just” the convergence of interoperable technologies. It represents the future of what is possible when leaders in higher education bring industry partners to the table to deliver on a shared vision.

Read the press release.

Over the last 17 years, the cloud became the essential tool for businesses. AWS has been leading this charge in delivering cloud value propositions to traditional IT customers, providing cost efficiencies, agility, scale, security, and reliability to those who use it.

As technology advances, the need for an enterprise edge-to-cloud continuum becomes increasingly important. The edge is a constantly redefined space, and there is a growing need not just to go from cloud to edge, but also from the edge to the cloud, to take advantage of the cloud value proposition for applications and workloads that live on the edge.

At Mobile World Congress Barcelona 2023, cloud innovation experts Andy King and John Tomik of the Slalom Element Lab, Federated Wireless CEO Iyad Tarazi, and Debika Bhattacharya, Chief Product Officer of Verizon Business, joined Wayne Duso, AWS Vice President of Engineering and Product, for a discussion of how their respective customers are finding ways to unlock the value of edge-to-cloud continuum, particularly in accelerating their monetization.

The panelists discussed how their customers are generating a tremendous amount of data at the edge and the need for the ability to process it there, along with connectivity at the edge and back to the cloud.

The intersection of 5G, edge computing, and cloud services

The emergence of 5G technology opened new opportunities for businesses to develop innovative solutions and streamline their operations. The combination of 5G, edge computing, and cloud services provides a powerful toolset for companies to improve their efficiency and productivity.

Federated CEO Iyad Tarazi provided the example of how Cal Poly University is solving the issue of students consuming 20 times more data today than when the Wi-Fi network was originally built by deploying a private 5G network from Federated Wireless that leverages AWS’s edge computing capabilities.

Another strong Federated Wireless example? The deployment of a warehouse application for the Department of Defense. The application was able to automate an entire million-square-foot Marine Corps logistics warehouse, reducing the complexity and resources needed to operate the site. This was made possible using robotics and edge computing connected by a private 5G network, with all the data being logged on-site.

The panelists agreed: the real value of these technologies comes from their integration. Applications and data must be able to move seamlessly between the edge and the cloud. Without the cloud, the edge application is severely limited.

Creativity in unlocking the potential of these technologies is a must. John Tomik, Slalom’s Managing Director, described a project with a water utility on the West Coast, which involved remote inspections of water treatment facilities where there was little to no connectivity, and the use of augmented reality devices and training solutions to troubleshoot issues in real-time.

The key lessons for business looking to leverage the edge-to-cloud continuum to its fullest potential?

• Deliver value: Identify the problems that need to be solved and let the use case drive the solutioning.
• Be practical: Determine the necessary infrastructure to serve one edge use case and build from there.
• Creativity first: Identify new use cases that may not have been possible before. The value unlocked there will inform other innovative use cases.

By focusing on delivering value, integrating these technologies, and being creative in their approach, businesses can unlock the full potential of these technologies and create new opportunities for growth and innovation.

Achieve big by starting small

According to Andy King, Slalom’s Director of Global IoT, many customers have a big vision, but prefer to start small with a micro-experiment. This allows them to identify the use case and KPIs that will benefit their business, and often leads to a micro-pivot from the original idea.

By setting up a cloud infrastructure using AWS services like Greengrass, Greengrass Core, and IoT Core, customers can demonstrate how the data will flow and how it can be processed at the edge. This allows for further analysis in the cloud and the ability to scale horizontally.

Iyad Tarazi shared his enthusiasm for the Snow family, which is ideal for customers who want to start right away with one application and grow from there. In his experience, many customers already know what they want to do, they just don’t know how to go about it. By starting small and fully connecting to the rest of the Amazon experience, engineers can quickly find out how far their applications can go.

Verizon’s Debika Bhattacharya highlighted the advancements made in networking over the past few years. Historically, networking was very component and circuit-based, but now it’s a service that customers can flex up and down as needed. By building programmable networks, applications can talk directly and the network can adapt to what’s needed. These new aspects of networking have been influenced by the cloud industry and make it easy, dynamic, and intuitive for users and applications.

Bottom line?

AWS services and a “think big, start small” mentality can help customers achieve their goals by setting up the infrastructure, running micro-experiments, and demonstrating how data will flow and be processed. The cloud computing paradigm is about accelerating innovation and providing customers with the services they need to achieve their goals.

Want to learn more about the future of connectivity at the edge? Discover how Federated Wireless is leveraging AWS services and cloud infrastructure to make the impossible possible for enterprises across industry sectors by watching our latest webinars, here.