5G development in the CBRS band has hit a new milestone, with the news that Airspan Networks’ Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) 5G Standalone small cell radio has been approved by the Federal Communications Commission for use in U.S. networks.
Airspan says that the radio, the AirStrand 2200, is the first CBRS 5G SA small cell radio to win approval from the FCC.
“We are proud of this industry first, which is another testament to our very talented and dedicated engineers and R&D team,” said Airspan President and CEO Eric Stonestrom. “Combining our extensive software, hardware and air interface innovations with first-to-market solutions is a winning formula to provide our customers with the best end-to-end 5G network solutions.”
In early October, Airspan announced that it had successfully completed tests focused on 5G and Open RAN interoperability in CBRS spectrum, including establishing 5G calls, data upload and download tests, link adaption, the ability of the system to recover from a radio link failure and mobility tests.
Those interoperability tests used a mobile test device with a Snapdragon X60 5G modem-RF system, connected to Airspan’s Open RAN 5G platform (OpenRANGE), including Radio Units (RUs), Distributed Units (DUs) and Centralized Units (CUs). Airspan said that the test set-up included its AirVelocity indoor solution and AirSpeed outdoor solution, and that the testing covered both lab and over-the-air field trials.
The AirStrand 2200 radio uses Qualcomm’s FSM100 5G RAN Platform. The company had announced in July that it was expanding its 5G CBRS product portfolio to meet demand, including from cable companies and private networks seeking to leverage CBRS.
Airspan touts the AirStrand 2200 as particularly well-suited for cable CBRS deployments, as it can be hung from aerial cable strands and use existing DOCSIS at those strands for power and backhaul. The company says that one tech can deploy six of the AirStrand radios in one day.
