The cities join New York City and Salt Lake City, which the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) named as innovation zones in September 2019.
One of the projects, at Raleigh, will specifically work on “flying 5G base stations”, said acting FCC chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
The move means that researchers do not need to apply for an experimental licence for each new test of the technology they want to run, said Rosenworcel. They “will support cutting-edge wireless research and development – including efforts to advance open RAN”, she said.
“Experimental licensing allows researchers to develop and test wireless systems without the cost of getting a commercial licence. It’s a terrific way to foster innovation.”
The new innovation zones are centred on North Carolina State University (pictured) in Raleigh, North Carolina, and Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, said the FCC.
The 2019 announcements covered New York’s Rutgers University, Columbia University and New York University, and the University of Utah and Rice University in Salt Lake City.
The FCC said the zones “create geographic areas within which experimental program licensees can conduct tests and other experiments in addition to their specifically licensed areas”.
Rosenworcel said: “They are city-scale testbeds that make it possible for anyone with a program license to show up and conduct experiments. They make opportunities for innovation accessible to both large entities and small players. Plus, they make it possible to develop products in real-world environments at a scale no laboratory could provide.”
She said the Boston innovation zone will allow for testing in dense urban and suburban environments. The Raleigh zone will house an aerial experimentation and research platform for advanced wireless, “which will focus on new use cases and things like developing flying 5G base stations to support wireless connectivity”.
Rosenworcel added that the FCC has extended the New York City footprint, to support a cloud enhanced open software defined mobile wireless testbed for city-scale deployment.
