Overview

The provided charts visualize the daily count of spectrum grants issued by the Citizens Broadband Radio Service (CBRS) Spectrum Access System (SAS), broken down by access tier types: GAA (General Authorized Access) and PAL (Priority Access Licenses). The data spans from 2021-08-31 to 2026-07-22.

The upper chart is a stacked area plot showing absolute daily grant volumes (# grants/day), while the lower chart normalizes the same data as a stacked percentage of total daily grants (100% total per day). Both illustrate a clear long-term rise in overall SAS grant activity, driven primarily by GAA, with PAL holding a smaller but stable share of the stack.

Updates and changes since the last review

• Data window: previous narrative treated mid/late 2025 as “current” (e.g., Nov 2025 language); this review uses samples through 2026-07-22.
• Headline changes: latest sample shows 1,077,701 GAA grants and 263,624 PAL grants (1,341,325 combined)—about 80.3% / 19.7% GAA/PAL.
• Trend continuity: GAA remains the dominant absolute layer; PAL continues to grow more slowly in absolute terms while holding roughly one-fifth of daily grant mix.
• New or revised findings: GAA share has eased from the low-80s/mid-80s earlier in the series toward a stable ~80% band from 2025 into 2026 as PAL absolute counts keep rising.
• Corrections: absolute volume ranges in the prior write-up (~900k–1M GAA by 2025) should be updated—latest GAA is above 1.07M.

Key Trends in Daily Grant Counts (Upper Chart)

• GAA Dominance: GAA forms the vast majority of the stack. From ~284k (2021-08-31) it climbed through ~613k (end-2022), ~874k (end-2023), ~960k (end-2024), ~1.04M (end-2025), and ~1.08M by 2026-07-22. Growth is compounding but has decelerated versus the earliest years.
• PAL Contribution: PAL rose from ~46k at series start to ~107k (end-2022), ~180k (end-2023), ~222k (end-2024), ~253k (end-2025), and ~264k by mid-July 2026. It adds meaningful volume without overtaking GAA.
• Seasonal/Periodic Patterns: Month-to-month waves appear throughout the series (deployment cycles, operational churn, and local spectrum conditions). The multi-year direction remains upward for both tiers.

Composition by Type (Lower Chart)

• GAA Share: High throughout—about 85% at end-2022, ~83% end-2023, ~81% end-2024, and ~80% in 2025–2026. Latest share is 80.3%. This matches GAA’s role as the scalable open-access tier.
• PAL Share: The remainder (~15–20%), rising from the mid-teens earlier toward ~19–20% recently (latest 19.7%). PAL remains premium, availability-constrained spectrum relative to opportunistic GAA.
• Stability in Proportions: Percentage mix is far less volatile than absolute counts. The ecosystem looks balanced: GAA absorbs most incremental grant demand while PAL retains a durable minority share.

In summary, CBRS SAS grants have scaled into the 1.3M+ combined range, with GAA powering about four-fifths of activity and enabling widespread adoption, while PAL provides a reliable secondary layer. By mid-2026 the market looks like a mature, still-growing grant environment rather than an early experiment.