There’s a spectrum debate playing out in Washington that most people outside the telecom industry haven’t heard of – and it may have more bearing on the future of American manufacturing than almost anything else on the policy agenda. At the center of it is the Citizens Broadband Radio Service, or CBRS. A new study by Analysys Mason, commissioned by the American-Made 5G coalition, puts hard numbers to what manufacturers on the ground already knew: CBRS isn’t just useful – it’s the reason the U.S. leads the world in private 5G deployments.
The Numbers Behind the Trend
The scale of CBRS adoption in U.S. manufacturing is larger than most people realize. According to Analysys Mason’s research:
- 75% of all U.S. private 5G networks rely on CBRS spectrum, and the U.S. has deployed more dedicated private 5G networks than any other country
- Private 5G deployments in manufacturing are forecast to exceed 2,500 by 2032, up from a few hundred today
- More than 85% of those factory networks will use CBRS – almost all on the unlicensed General Authorized Access (GAA) tier
Those aren’t projections built on optimism. They reflect a wave of deployments already underway at companies like John Deere, Dow Chemical, BMW, and Cargill. John Deere acquired CBRS Priority Access Licenses and is rolling out private 5G across its U.S. manufacturing plants, including 5G-connected torque wrenches that tell assembly workers in real time whether bolts are correctly tightened. That’s production-line infrastructure, not a proof-of-concept.
What It’s Actually Doing on the Factory Floor
The appeal of CBRS for manufacturers comes down to a few things Wi-Fi and public cellular can’t match in industrial settings: site-wide coverage, mobility support for robots and vehicles, SIM-based security that keeps operational data on premises, and the flexibility to reconfigure production lines without re-cabling.
Unplanned downtime costs U.S. manufacturers an estimated $50 billion per year. One automotive manufacturer in the study cut unplanned downtime by 30% after deploying CBRS private 5G, and reduced IT staffing at some sites by 15-20%. Cargill went from 44 Wi-Fi access points to just 5 cellular radios to cover a single warehouse, cutting the total cost of ownership roughly in half. An automotive components maker halved production line changeover time because reconfiguration no longer means re-cabling. BMW’s Spartanburg plant uses AI-driven video analytics over private 5G to inspect metal stud placement on car frames in real time.
These aren’t edge cases. They’re representative of a broader adoption pattern documented by the study across food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, metals, electronics, and retail goods.
A Band Built for Enterprise, Not Carriers
CBRS operates on a three-tier sharing model. Federal incumbents – primarily the U.S. Navy – hold top priority. Priority Access License (PAL) holders sit in the middle tier, having won spectrum at auction. The GAA tier is open to any enterprise and is dynamically coordinated by Spectrum Access Systems, with no license fee required.
That accessible structure is why the CBRS ecosystem skews heavily American. Unlike the public 5G market dominated by Ericsson, Nokia, and Huawei, the private 5G supply chain built on CBRS is largely U.S.-based – from Qualcomm and Intel on chips, to Celona, JMA Wireless, and HPE on radio and network equipment, to Federated Wireless and Google managing spectrum access.
As John Puskar, CEO of American-Made 5G, said, CBRS has become the third leg of the stool alongside licensed spectrum and Wi-Fi, purpose-built for enterprise and industrial use. It lets manufacturers deploy secure, high-performance networks without carrier dependency or expensive spectrum auctions.
The Policy Fight That Could Undo It
CBRS’s future isn’t settled. In 2024, AT&T proposed relocating CBRS users from the 3.55-3.7 GHz band to the 3.1-3.3 GHz band, freeing mid-band spectrum for full-power licensed 5G use. Conversations in Washington about similar proposals haven’t stopped, and the uncertainty is already affecting investment decisions.
The Analysys Mason study doesn’t argue for or against reallocation. But it does document what manufacturers say would happen: serious, multi-year disruption. Private 5G networks built on CBRS depend on hardware tuned to the 3.55-3.7 GHz band. A move would require the entire ecosystem – chipsets, radios, end-user devices – to be rebuilt. The OnGo Alliance counts over 1,100 FCC-approved CBRS-capable devices on the market – all of which would need redesigning, retesting, and recertification. One food and beverage company called the prospect “devastating” – private 5G is the only connectivity in several of its warehouses, with no Wi-Fi fallback.
The Reshoring Connection
A 2024 survey found that 69% of U.S. manufacturers have begun reshoring their supply chains, with cost cited as the biggest barrier. Private 5G is part of the answer – it makes domestic plants automated and efficient enough to compete even with higher U.S. labor costs. One electronics manufacturer that moved production from China to the U.S. said it plainly: they needed automation to offset higher costs, and that required a fast, secure network entirely under their control. CBRS made that possible.
Germany and the UK have both allocated dedicated local spectrum for private 5G – the equivalent function CBRS serves in the U.S. If spectrum changes here undermine what manufacturers have built, the U.S. risks ceding that industrial connectivity advantage to countries that have committed to their own enterprise spectrum frameworks.
The Bottom Line
CBRS is the connectivity layer beneath a growing share of advanced U.S. manufacturing – and by the study’s numbers, the share is only heading one direction. The policy decisions on reallocation and power levels made in the next year or two will either reinforce that foundation or introduce years of hardware transition costs into facilities that are just hitting their stride with automation. For the manufacturers already running AGVs, predictive maintenance systems, and computer vision on CBRS networks, the stakes are entirely concrete.
