CCR  |   LTE  |  2021-01-13

CBRS Alliance rebrands to OnGo Alliance to support global shared spectrum initiatives

Source: CBRS Alliance
Curated by: Gert Jan Wolf - Editor-in Chief for The Critical Communications Review

The CBRS Alliance, an industry organization focused on driving the development, commercialization, and adoption of OnGo™ shared spectrum solutions, today announced it is expanding its mission to encompass 3GPP technologies operating in shared spectrum bands around the globe – leveraging its members’ groundbreaking successes in commercializing the CBRS band in the United States. To align with this broader objective, the organization is changing its name to the OnGo Alliance.

Over the past five years, the CBRS Alliance and its nearly 200 members have contributed incredible amounts of time, energy, and innovation to develop reliable, secure, and cost-effective wireless services for the 3.5 GHz CBRS band. Since the authorization of full commercial service in early 2020, the industry has seen extensive adoption of OnGo solutions. To date, numerous OnGo networks have been deployed to satisfy a wide range of use cases, including mobile broadband, fixed wireless access, and enterprise private networks. The private deployments include a variety of sectors, covering education, healthcare, manufacturing, transportation and more.

Through its efforts in bringing OnGo solutions to market successfully, the Alliance has developed considerable know-how on building an ecosystem, identifying and resolving policy and technical issues, stimulating wireless markets, and building industry consensus. The applicability of much of this work extends beyond the CBRS band and the shores of the United States.

“The Alliance is very proud of our members’ amazing work over the last five years to realize the vision for LTE and 5G commercial services in the CBRS band,” said Dave Wright, President of the OnGo Alliance. “While our focus will continue to be on advancing OnGo adoption and deployments in the 3.5 GHz CBRS band, our new, expanded mission provides the latitude for us to apply our specifications, work products, and learnings in other frequencies and countries.”

“Following the success of OnGo commercialization, the FCC, NTIA, and DoD are actively considering other bands for sharing. Additionally, the Alliance is being contacted by international organizations that would like to engage and become affiliated,” said Alan Ewing, Executive Director of the OnGo Alliance. “Success in the CBRS band has shown the viability of spectrum sharing in other bands and geographies. The responsible next step would be to recast the Alliance as an organization dedicated to enabling 3GPP based technologies in shared spectrum.”