Summer Myatt
As growing demand for wireless communications crowds airwaves, spectrum sharing is becoming increasingly essential to the success of 5G.
“Spectrum sharing is absolutely critical because of the need to make networks that have very good performance parameters, a lot of bandwidth,” said Gen. Rob Spalding, CEO of SEMPRE and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, during a recent video interview with Executive Mosaic.
“Unfortunately, when you look at the spectrum out there in the United States today — and this really exists in other countries as well — it’s been carved up into individual carrier allotments,” he added.
Meet, learn from and network with Rob Spalding in person at the 2024 Navy Summit on Aug. 15 to unlock more insights about 5G! Spalding will be speaking on a panel focused on 5G use cases in the Navy. Register now to attend the Navy Summit.
Spectrum sharing is a concept that aims to optimize the use of wireless communications channels by enabling multiple categories of users to share the same frequency bands. Gen. Spalding argues that spectrum sharing would drastically improve the network experience for users.
“For instance, if you were taking a network that was built on the combined spectrum of Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile and they were sharing that network in a shared radio network configuration, the user experience for all three carriers’ customers would be much better because it would look like they all had access to a super highway. That’s not the way it is today,” Spalding explained.
Spectrum sharing is also important for mission critical operations, Spalding noted. For example, if a first responders network is jammed or experiencing interference, those operators need to be able to move frequencies in order to do their jobs.
“We do this on the battlefield already,” Spalding shared. “We have radios that can move frequencies and have anti-jam techniques built in, but we really haven’t done that in the commercial space. When you see the attacks that are going on in infrastructure today, it makes it imperative that you have the ability to move spectrum and have dynamic spectrum sharing.”
