RDOF winner Resound Networks says that it has successfully achieved gigabit speeds using fixed wireless access (FWA) in the 6 GHz band via an experimental license. The company said that it reached a distance of more than three miles using 160 MHz-wide channels that will become available in the band.
Resound is one of three top-ten winning bidders in the Rural Development Opportunity Fund (RDOF) auction that plan to use fixed wireless, along with fiber broadband, to deliver gigabit speeds.
And while several big winning bidders that plan to rely on gigabit fiber broadband for their deployments have had funding released to them, none of the big winning bidders planning to use gigabit fixed wireless have had funding released — apparently because the FCC wants to make sure that the technology can meet performance requirements.
“Resound is committed to expanding gigabit-tier services as we rapidly expand into new markets.” Resound Networks’ CEO Tyson Curtis said in a press release about the gigabit fixed wireless 6 GHz testing. “We were impressed working with Airspan that we exceeded our gigabit-tier distance expectations in the 6 GHz band by 50% reaching out to over 3 miles. Airspan’s Mimosa A6 and C6x solution will help us expedite the deployment of reliable gigabit services to even more subscribers in rural markets than previously expected.”
Late last month, Nextlink Internet, another big RDOF winning bidder that has not yet had funding released, said that it used the 6 GHz spectrum band for FWA performance of more than two miles at speeds of 1 Gbps downstream and 500 Mbps upstream.
NextLink used equipment from Cambium and Qualcomm in the testing.
Fixed wireless providers have big hopes for the 6 GHz band, which contains a wide swath of spectrum that will be available on an unlicensed basis. The FCC voted in 2020 to free up spectrum in the band.
