By Catherine Sbeglia

Last week, Sony Group and Mitsui announced the operation of Sony’s Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA) technology using Airspan 5G Standalone base stations. The Japanese companies have also committed to jointly studying the commercial potential for this technology.

By optimizing the use of radio frequency resources, DSA technology is expected to help address the increase in data traffic resulting from the numerous use cases that 5G enables. The technology allows for centralized management of radio frequencies via a real-time resource management database, replacing the traditional method of managing each frequency band separately, making it possible for spatio-temporally underutilized spectrum to be allocated for use by new operators and users.

Europe and the United States have already shown considerable interest in shared spectrum technologies, with their approach to spectrum assignment for 4G/5G in certain regions and locations, as well as subsequent infrastructure development. In August, for instance, Federated Wireless demonstrated for the US Department of Defense (DoD) the benefits of shared spectrum — Citizens Broadband Radio Services (CBRS) and millimeter (mmWave). The demonstration showcased the capabilities of the US$12 million prototype Smart Warehouse Technology by reaching high-speed downloads of 1.5 Gbps and sub-15 millisecond latency using 380 megahertz of spectrum in the 3.5 GHz band and 37 GHz mmWave shared band.

According to a press release, Sony and Mitsui aim to “implement an effective spectrum utilization model and establish cutting-edge business and technology platforms […] across a broad geographic area, which includes not only Japan, the US and Europe, but also Asia and other regions.”