What an enterprise should decide

The rule asks four questions in order

Each question takes options off the table before the next one is asked, which is why the rule works only in this order (Exhibit 1).

1. Classify the building. Part 3 showed that a building’s construction sets the loss at every band. At 3.625 GHz the median is 15.8 dB for a traditional building and 30.9 dB for a thermally efficient one with metallised glass and foil-backed panels. In the second kind, plan an indoor system for any cellular service. A higher-power class that would hand back roughly one building class from outside is so far only a proposal (part 4).
2. Ask whose devices need the service. The enterprise’s own laptops, scanners, sensors and cameras can use any network it builds. Phones that belong to staff, visitors or tenants can use only a network their carrier admits them to. This question decides whether the carriers have a say.
3. For devices you own, ask whether Wi-Fi 7 meets the need. If it does, Wi-Fi 7 is the answer. If you can name a need it does not meet, such as mobility, vehicles or a channel of your own, that need goes on private 5G, and the rest stays on Wi-Fi.
4. For phones you do not own, ask which carriers must work. If AT&T’s customers suffice, a CBRS neutral host serves them. If Verizon’s or T-Mobile’s customers matter, the route is a licensed carrier programme or a multi-carrier system, and the owner pays for it.

The rule runs as follows. Classify the building first. For devices you own, use Wi-Fi 7 unless you can name a need it does not meet. Put only that need on private 5G, with a payback that ends before the shared band’s rules can change. For phones you do not own, buy coverage from the carriers whose customers you need: a CBRS neutral host where AT&T alone suffices, a licensed carrier programme where Verizon or T-Mobile matter.

Wi-Fi 7 is the default for devices the enterprise owns

Private 5G and Wi-Fi 7 both work for an enterprise’s own laptops, scanners, sensors and cameras, so the case for private 5G has to rest on something Wi-Fi 7 cannot do.

Wi-Fi 7 has a finished standard and most of its market (Exhibit 2). IEEE 802.11be-2024 was approved on 26 September 2024 and published on 22 July 2025. The Wi-Fi Alliance’s certification includes 320 MHz channels, “only in the 6 GHz band”, and multi-link operation. By the second quarter of 2026, Dell’Oro reported in September, Wi-Fi 7 was over half the WLAN market, and vendors sold more than 10 million access points in the quarter, a record. Private wireless RAN, by the same firm’s count, was 3 to 5% of all RAN revenue in 2025, growing 16% and slowing, with its campus outlook cut. The rules behind Wi-Fi 7 have moved in one direction since 2020, towards more use (part 4).

Private 5G earns its place where the enterprise can name the need, and the needs on the record are specific ones. APM Terminals runs CBRS across Pier 400 in Los Angeles, which is 507 acres, for cameras, theft monitoring and sensors on equipment. John Deere’s factories use it to run autonomous vehicles and robots, as reported. Utilities buy a channel nobody else may use, at 900 MHz or in PALs (part 2). Most of them share one exposure. An advocates’ report filed in July 2026, citing Analysys Mason, says 75% of American private 5G networks rely on CBRS, so for three in four of them the rules exposure in part 4 is the network’s own exposure.

Two checks follow. First, size the payback to end before the rules can change, or buy radios and a core that can move to licensed spectrum if they do. NTIA’s first list is due on 4 July 2027 and most PALs renew on 12 March 2031. Second, write a supplier exit into the contract, because one of the two main vendors expects to sell its campus unit and both cloud services have already closed.

Phones the enterprise does not own belong to the carriers

A private network can reach a phone but cannot give it its carrier’s service, and Apple’s own documentation shows where the line falls.

Band support is no longer the obstacle. Every iPhone since the iPhone 11 of 2019 lists LTE band 48, and every one since the iPhone 13 of 2021 lists 5G band n48. FCC equipment grants for Samsung’s Galaxy S21 and S25 include CBRS operation. The obstacle now is how a private network behaves once it is inside the phone.

For those phones the carriers decide, and part 3 sets out how each has decided so far. A CBRS neutral host broadcasts several carriers’ identities on shared radios. AT&T certifies it, as reported. T-Mobile asked vendors in August 2025 to put licensed spectrum ahead of CBRS. Verizon let its customers onto Meta’s CBRS office network in 2023, has not certified Celona’s system, and decides case by case. Where Verizon’s or T-Mobile’s customers matter, the route runs through their licensed spectrum (Exhibit 3).

That route has a name at each carrier. The 5G Americas paper Neutral Host Opportunities for 5G and Beyond (July 2024) lists the enterprise-funded programmes: AT&T Direct, T-Mobile’s Build Your Own Coverage and Verizon’s Coverage Extension Radio Access Network. Blue Prysm’s founder, Colin Bowdery, co-led the working group that wrote it while he was at Ericsson. The alternative is a multi-carrier system with each carrier’s own signal source. Either way the enterprise pays; the paper says medium and low-capacity venues “will have to either partially subsidize the system cost or completely fund it themselves”. For scale, Wilson Connectivity publishes $5 to $10 a square foot for a multi-carrier active system.

The enterprises on the record each fit one branch of the rule

Six enterprises have said why they chose what they chose, in a filing or to a reporter, and each lands on one branch of the rule (Exhibit 4).

Syracuse is the reason the rules check belongs in the rule. The other five fit their branches without qualification: two are own-device networks with a named need, two are neutral hosts for phones the owner does not own, and one is an anchor-tenant deal on licensed spectrum where Verizon’s customers mattered.

The rules check sets the payback horizon

Every network on the shared band is bound by the dates that part 1 and part 4 set out (Exhibit 5). The FCC’s notice of 16 August 2024 could change the power limits at any meeting and has produced no order. NTIA must identify its first 200 MHz of federal spectrum by 4 July 2027, and whether 3.55 to 3.65 GHz counts is undecided. Google’s database closes on 10 June 2027. The renewal window for most PALs opens on 12 December 2030, and 17,460 of them expire, and must show service, on 12 March 2031. A payback that runs past any of those dates is a bet on how the date turns out.

Terms used

• Wi-Fi 7. The Wi-Fi Alliance’s name for IEEE 802.11be. Its widest channels, 320 MHz, are available only in the 6 GHz band.
• Private SIM. A SIM or eSIM profile issued for one private network. On an iPhone it is data-only, and one using the private-network country code 999 cannot roam onto public networks.
• Enterprise-funded carrier programme. A carrier’s arrangement under which the building owner pays for a system that uses that carrier’s licensed spectrum, such as AT&T Direct or T-Mobile’s Build Your Own Coverage.
• Thermally efficient building. P.2109’s class for buildings with metallised glass and foil-backed panels, 15 dB or more harder to enter than a traditional one.