FCC recently concluded another successful spectrum auction, its first in the 5G mid-band. The auction, designated as Auction 105, was completed in August 2020 and hosted bids for Priority Access Licenses in the 3550-3650 MHz band. This landmark auction made available more spectrum licenses in a single FCC auction than ever before.
The Smith Institute is one of the four partners of Team Oasys, the team hand-selected by Oasys that is currently providing Independent Verification and Validation (IV&V) Testing to support FCC’s largest and most complicated spectrum auctions.
These auctions involve new and complex processing and algorithms and demand tight schedules to meet the auction launch dates. They are part of the FCC’s wider plan to make more mid-band spectrum available to further the deployment of 5G across America.
Our role in Team Oasys is to verify and validate the algorithmic components of the auction bidding systems. For Auction 105, we verified that the algorithms used in the auction matched the auction design specification. Our testing responsibilities extended to testing the bidding and administrator functionalities, as well as the underpinning database. We verified the integrity of the data transfer between the interface and database. The large volumes of data that the auction generated required us to innovate and create new automated tools for their verification.
Chief Technical Officer of the Smith Institute and member of Team Oasys, Dr Robert Leese commented, ‘We are delighted to be supporting FCC in its ambitious auction program, through our collaboration with partners at Oasys. The scale and complexity of the auction systems have required the development of novel testing workflows and an emphasis on teamwork and excellence.’
Disclaimer: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has not reviewed or approved any statement in this document for accuracy or validity. The FCC and its employees do not endorse goods or services provided by the Contractor or any other contractor.
