Verizon Wireless last week received an experimental short term authorization (STA) from the FCC to use the 3700.485 – 3700.515 MHz band in the top 46 Partial Economic Areas (PEAs). The carrier is testing its transmission models for nationwide coverage in the C-band spectrum and says it is hoping to deploy to 7,000-to-8,000 towers by the end of the year. Verizon says it plans to use this STA to co-develop different radio frequency prediction models used for planning the network. The 30 kHz sought under this STA will fall in a subset of the recently auctioned flexible use C-band at 3.7 to 3.98 GHz and ultimately will be part of Verizon Wireless’ post clearing assignments.
The carrier’s request is temporary, expiring six months from the issuance of the grant. Testing under the STA will occur outdoors, and all transmissions will be controlled at locations within the requested PEAs. Continuous Wave test transmitters will employ omnidirectional antennas not exceeding 7 dBi and will have varying antenna elevation as test locations are selected. Since the requested frequency range falls outside of Earth Station operations and transmitting a max ERP power of 61 watts, there will not be any concern for Earth Station interference as the lowest transponder bandwidth is located between 3702 and 3738 MHz, according to the carrier.
There will be up to 10 data collection teams, according to the STA request. Each team will have one transmitter and one receiver per PEA. Each team will temporarily construct one transmitter on a Verizon cell site at a time and collect data. Once the data is collected, the teams will deconstruct the transmitter and move to another site. This process will repeat within the PEA until enough data is collected to develop and tune the model. Once the PEA is complete, the teams will move to their next PEA assignment within the Top 46 markets.
Verizon will strategically select test locations, as previously noted, that it predicts will not interfere with existing Earth Stations. In the “highly unlikely” event those licensees do experience interference, Verizon Wireless states it will cease interfering operations.
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