Off-piste 5G in the Broadcast Auxiliary Service band

5G New Radio (NR) can be used to provide flexible, high-capacity and low-latency networks suitable for broadcast content acquisition or delivery, but access to suitable spectrum can be challenging. One of the enablers for private network deployments is shared spectrum licensing, such as the upper n77 band (3.8–4.2 GHz) available in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. The Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) was created to develop mobile standards for WCDMA and TD-SCDMA and their respective core networks, and has continued to publish standards as radio access technologies have progressed to 4G and 5G. These standards define frequency bands, numerologies, duplex models and messaging (among many other things). While software-defined radio (SDR) is emerging as a viable and highly flexible solution for core and radio access network (RAN) functions, user equipment (UE) typically remain hardware based with modems that implement the 3GPP standards to ensure device compatibility. The flexibility of SDR RAN allows for wireless radio networks based on 5G NR to be built in non-3GPP defined spectrum bands, but there are no compatible devices to connect. In the USA, broadcasters have access to spectrum in the Broadcast Auxiliary Service (BAS) band (2025– 2110 MHz), which coincides with the programme-making and special events (PMSE) band used in the UK and Europe. This allows for rapid licensing of 10/12 MHz channels for traditional wireless camera systems, such as COFDM, that could instead be used to license low-to-medium power private 5G NR-based networks capable of supporting multiple cameras and other IP-based workflows. This paper discusses the development of a flexible software-defined UE capable of connecting to non-3GPP 5G NR networks in BAS/PMSE spectrum.