It seems we have a chicken / egg scenario with field installers putting up CBRS SM’s. I see a similar post about this be it is old and never really reached a conclusion. Now that others have had more time to work on this, wondering what the best practices might be.
So, we schedule an installation at a new location which at best gives us an approximate location and guesstimate on the height. To make matters worse the customer might be in a location that could connect with multiple towers and/or AP’s.
It seems in order to get the SM online it must FIRST be registered and when you do this it must be to a specific access point. Clearly people are not provisioning MANY radios per POSSIBLE install and then making the installer cycle through them all.
How are people performing their site surveys, connections tests and then once you know that the installation will go collecting all of the information required to get this registered with the SAS.
Thanks in advance for any information that you can provide!
Installer gets to location, runs an AP eval scan on the SM to find best AP, calls one of several CPI staff we have available with the CBSD data, while they’re entering in data the installer starts the installation. Within 15 minutes the SM is in the system and authorized. We’re not located near the coast so we don’t have to deal with CPAS issues… BUT if I did, I’d pick the AP that I think had the best shot and pre-register the CBSD in cnMaestro 24+ hours before the installation and hope and pray that it transitions to an authorized state.
Hope and pray is right. We are close enough to the coast (~25 miles) that every SM has to go through CPAS the night before it will work. It makes the entire process a complete hassle.
Fortunately we do not have the CPAS issue which sounds like a complete nightmare. We only have a single CPI and this is of course not an ideal workflow. Too bad this had not been more fully thought through from an implementation standpoint when developed. We will just have to learn to work in these guidelines of course.
Still open to any other suggestions to make the process run most efficiently. Thanks all!
We have 2 CPIs, but they are often in the field. So we find the most likely AP the day before and register the SM. Works well most of the time. Haven’t found anything that works all the time with CBRS yet. 