Charter Moving Ahead with Shared-Spectrum Deployments

WASHINGTON, May 15, 2025 – Charter is aiming to ramp up deployments of some shared spectrum this year, the company’s CEO said.

The cable operator spent more than $460 million on priority licenses in the Citizens Broadband Radio Service band in 2020. CBRS uses lower power than typical 5G spectrum and has a tiered licensing system, with coastal Navy radars getting priority over those who purchased licenses, and those licensed in turn getting priority over free general access users.

“CBRS has taken a little while to get off the ground, and the reason for that is we had to get an entire ecosystem set up,” Charter CEO Chris Winfrey said Thursday at the MoffettNathanson Media, Internet & Communications Conference.

He said that involved radios, chips, and mobile phone hardware and software that could take advantage of the airwaves.

“Now that’s all done,” he said. “We’re in full deployment mode.”

He reiterated that the company would deploy CBRS spectrum in 23 markets this year, but didn’t specify where. 

The company currently offloads more than 87 percent of its mobile traffic via Wi-Fi, a number that’s poised to get higher as CBRS rolls out. Winfrey said it was “not inaccurate” that a third of the remaining traffic over Verizon’s network could eventually be offloaded via CBRS.

Comcast CFO Jason Armstrong, also at the MoffettNathanson conference, said the company was also rolling out its CBRS spectrum, but was less enthusiastic. The company has said it offloads more than 90 percent of its mobile traffic via Wi-Fi.

“I probably wouldn’t say we’re going to every market with this or have a near-term plan to,” he said. “But we’re in several markets already and you’re going to continue to see that move up.”

Both of the cable executives sought to emphasize that their mobile networking deals with Verizon were working for them. Despite all the offloading, Verizon’s infrastructure allows both companies’ mobile customers to stay connected if no Wi-Fi is available.

“The macro cell tower isn’t something that you’re going to be able to get away from,” Winfrey said. “People generally aren’t watching that much video as they’re driving down the road, but it does happen with kids in the back. We need that capacity to complement the full-rounded mobile product that we have.”

Comcast and Charter, which have more than 18 million mobile subscribers between them, have begun leaning into the service to stave off continued broadband losses. Both CEOs said they were optimistic about this year being better than the last, but analysts don’t expect the cable industry to return to outright subscriber growth any time soon.

The current Washington battle

Groups representing the major 5G carriers have taken shots at the cable companies for their sluggish CBRS deployments, using it as part of arguments against sharing regimes generally. The industry prefers the full-power, exclusive licenses that power its mobile networks.

The carriers appear poised for a victory as lawmakers put together a budget reconciliation bill. 

The House Energy and Commerce Committee advanced in the early hours of Wednesday morning language that would require the Federal Communications Commission to auction 600 megahertz of spectrum “on an exclusive, licensed basis for mobile broadband services, fixed broadband services, mobile and fixed broadband services, or a combination thereof.” 

It will now go to the chamber’s Budget Committee before a floor vote. 

Spectrum for the Future, a pro-sharing group representing the cable giants and consumer advocates, had said it feared some CBRS airwaves could be sold off as part of the plan. The Defense Department and AT&T have both proposed looking at CBRS to satisfy the mobile industry’s desire for more spectrum.

Some Democratic lawmakers verbally supported the idea of adding a carve-out protecting CBRS – the bill included similar language that would prevent unlicensed Wi-Fi spectrum from counting toward the 600 megahertz goal – but no such amendments were introduced.