New Microsoft Research Note: continuing commitment to rural connectivity

Like Google, for Microsoft most of its business depends on internet connectivity and the two companies are staunch defenders of unlicensed spectrum as a guarantor of cheap and ubiquitous access.

Compared to Google, Microsoft has fewer consumer-orientated standalone products such as home control and smart speakers but the Xbox – which uses 5 GHz Wi-Fi – is crucial to its business and the company supports further opening of this band for both indoor and outdoor use.

The Microsoft vision is for spectrum sharing to be the norm of future spectrum management rather than an exception, and it campaigns for both licensed and unlicensed use in 24 GHz, 28 GHz, 37 GHz and 39 GHz; the expansion of the CBRS approach; and additional unlicensed use in bands above 64 GHz.

Microsoft’s defining spectrum policy feature is its continuing commitment to TV whitespace, a backbone of its Airband rural connectivity initiative, and a subject on which it continues to campaign.

See the full Microsoft Research Note here.