Wireless Innovation Using Mid-Band Spectrum

Today, the FCC began an exciting Notice of Inquiry that will explore new ways to help spur next-generation wireless broadband services. The new inquiry will ask questions about how to use mid-band spectrum between 3.7 GHz and 24 GHz, and will be crucial for those of us working to develop wireless technology to efficiently and effectively deliver ultra-fast, low latency broadband for consumers.

The answers to these questions about how this spectrum will be used is critical for us at Charter, as we focus on innovation in the wireless space. Currently, we’re testing licensed small cell technology in the neighboring 3.5 GHz band which will put us on the path to provide 5G connectivity to our customers. We also anticipate these tests will help define how our network can be used to provide multi-gigabit wireless broadband services to businesses and homes located in harder to serve, more rural parts of the country.

This is hardly a new focus of ours – Charter is already a leading provider in broadband communications. Serving over 26 million customers in 41 states, our minimum broadband speed is 100 Mbps in over half our footprint and at least 60 Mbps in the rest of our service area. We are already a wireless company having over two hundred million wireless devices attached to our network and intend to launch a mobile wireless offering for our customers in 2018.

We look forward to working with the FCC on setting spectrum policy that will enable companies like ours to make the wireless internet of tomorrow a reality for our customers.