Kurt Schaubach, CTO, Federated Wireless

Federated Wireless is joining the growing list of vendors pushing deeper into the private wireless space, though it's banking on its history in managing early deployments to stand out from the crowd.

The company this week launched its Private Wireless-as-a-Service product that takes advantage of its embedded partner ecosystem and experience managing the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) spectrum. Federated Wireless CTO Kurt Schaubach explained in an interview with SDxCentral that the as-a-service platform is designed to help simplify private network deployments for enterprises and industry verticals.

“We've seen that they need a very straightforward solution,” Schaubach said. “They want something that is easily transacted, that is easy to scale, but they also don't want to go to the full [systems integrator] model. They don't want something that is highly customized around a very bespoke solution and bespoke process for them to implement the network.”

Federated Wireless’ as-a-service approach provides a three-step launch process. Customers first order what service they want through the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Marketplace. They then onboard that service either themselves or working with Federated Wireless. And finally they work to scale the platform to meet their business objectives.

Schaubach explained this allows a customer to begin with a “network starter bundle, but then offerings services around [radio frequency] design and network design, spectrum planning, network deployment support services, integrated spectrum management services for operations in CBRS, 24/7 [network operations center], network maintenance, and performance management.”

Federated Wireless works with its more than 100 ecosystem partners to fulfill most of this process. Schaubach said this allows the vendor to provide hardware and software that have been tested to work together and can be targeted at a customer’s specific use case.

This model is also able to support an enterprise turning on its first application running on the service in as little as two weeks.

Federated Wireless’ approach does target what is likely to be growing confusion over what is a rapidly growing market for private wireless services.

Others are also offering these systems as-a-service, though Schaubach said Federated Wireless’ approach allows for more flexibility while still remaining simple. Those two ideas might seem to be contradictory but could play out in the real world.

“What I think distinguishes our offer is the ability to not only order and fulfill a network starter bundle, and again, having these templates, which are very use-case focused, but also the professional services that they can order and the transactions around them are very simple and streamlined around network planning, around spectrum planning, and CBRS,” Schaubach explained.

That CBRS angle could be where Federated Wireless has an upper hand over rivals. The company was one of the first to market with a platform allowing for management of that spectrum band’s complex licensing model and is working with more than 300 customers using that spectrum.

CBRS spectrum is a swath of around 150 megahertz in the 3.5 GHz band that the federal government has set aside for licensed use. An organization can gain access to some of those bands for a limited geographic area using a licensing process managed by a couple of different programs.

Schaubach said that Federated Wireless has seen great success tapping into the Generally Authorized Access (GAA) spectrum tier of that spectrum, which is the lowest of three tiers of access and has the least amount of protection from interference. However, it’s the free tier, which could be appealing. He did add that it was also working to tie in the more stringently licensed Priority Access License (PAL) model for customers that want greater control over their network.

“We think CBRS is a key enabler here,” Schaubach said. “We've had tremendous success with it in the deployments that we've done with customers already in private wireless over the past years. And we know it's the growth engine for private wireless in the years to come.”

Catch up on all of our coverage from MWC Las Vegas here.