FreedomFi co-founder: ‘Dish is working with us to enable the use of GAA CBRS spectrum to pioneer an entirely new way to connect people and things’
Dish is piloting the world’s first community-driven, neutral-host CBRS hotspot network in collaboration with FreedomFi, an open 5G networking company.
“Open source platforms unlock innovation among developers — providing better and faster-to-market products and services,” Dish said in a statement. “The collaboration between DISH and FreedomFi will help encourage individuals and communities to take part in their connectivity future.”
FreedomFi’s claim to fame is its modified FreedomFi Gateways that utilize Magma — the company’s open source software package. According to the company, its gateway is “the easiest path towards [an] open source Private LTE or 5G network.”
“Dish is working with us to enable the use of GAA CBRS spectrum to pioneer an entirely new way to connect people and things,” said Joey Padden, CTO and co-founder at FreedomFi. “The CBRS-based 5G hotspots will be deployed by individuals, creating opportunities for users, partners, and the entire ecosystem.”
For Dish, this collaboration further signals its commitment to building a wireless network that is cloud-native and leverages open architectures.
“As Dish deploys our own smart 5G network across the country, we seek partners who are innovative, regardless of whether they are one of the largest technology providers in the world or a startup with a disruptive idea, like FreedomFi,” said Chris Ergen, head of the Office of Innovation, Dish Wireless. “We are fully committed to our buildout and view this pilot as a valuable opportunity to further connectivity, innovation and openness. Our pilot program with FreedomFi leverages CBRS GAA spectrum, as well as the open source Magma Core, which was developed with key contributions by Facebook Connectivity.”
FreedomFi also announced the launch of FreedomFi One, a consumer-deployable cellular base station. FreedomFi One is an indoor cellular base station that operates in the CBRS spectrum band. Because configuration and setup is fully automated, the base station can be deployed without any knowledge of cellular technologies. The user simply plugs it in into a FreedomFi Gateway.
“An average cost to bring up a small cell site in the US today is $36,000, most of which is the cost of labor to complete the setup and configuration,” said Padden. “Through software automation and innovative open source technologies like Magma, we have cut that cost by two orders of magnitude. The 50,000 small cells we will deliver is more than Verizon currently has in the United States.”
For the production of those 50,000 FreedomFi One small cells, which reportedly provide downlink speeds of up to 220Mbps and can support up to 96 simultaneous cellular device connections, the company turned to cellular radio equipment manufacturer Sercomm.
“FreedomFi is taking a revolutionary, open source-centric approach to democratizing small cell deployments,” said Ben Lin, Sercomm CTO. “We are looking forward to partnering with the company for a long time to come.”
