FCC Expected to Act on 5.9 GHz Order by Fall
Despite concerns raised by some automakers, highway safety groups and others, the FCC appears likely to move forward before fall on a proposal to open 5.9 GHz channels to sharing with Wi-Fi and other unlicensed users, agency and industry officials said in interviews this week. Wi-Fi advocates see the band as transition spectrum, which can be deployed faster than 6 GHz. Both sides filed replies this week on a December NPRM (see 2004280064).
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Signs from the FCC are that it will act. Commissioner Mike O’Rielly predicted a summer vote twice in the last week (see 2004230059). Last week, after the Alliance for Automotive Innovation promised to deploy millions of devices in vehicles if the FCC drops a proposal to reallocate the band, a commission spokesperson said that plan “reinforces” the need for the regulator to act (see 2004230054). ITS America wants the FCC to drop its proposal to change how the band is allocated and preserve the spectrum for dedicated short-range communications. “Our view is directly opposite the FCC’s,” a spokesperson emailed.
Chairman Ajit Pai has acted on other frequencies amid opposition from government agencies and other incumbents. The FCC faced broad objections on its 6 GHz order last week. The Department of Education objected to the 2.5 GHz order and DOD to the Ligado order. In each case, the FCC moved forward. Pai likely would have support of the other commissioners, officials said. The FCC didn't comment.
The American Association of State Highway Transportation Officials “remains optimistic that the FCC will continue to preserve” the band for safety, emailed Matthew Hardy, program director-planning and performance management. “Last week’s pledge by the Alliance for Automotive Innovation to install five million connected vehicle radios in new passenger vehicles makes a strong case for preserving the entire 5.9 GHz spectrum for the safety and mobility purposes it was intended for,” he said.
Wi-Fi advocates expect a vote. “The 5.9 GHz band, in combination with the adjacent band, would offer a contiguous block of unlicensed spectrum that could accommodate wider Wi-Fi channels and, thereby, enable the existing 5 GHz Wi-Fi ecosystem to timely deliver much needed broadband connectivity,” said Alex Roytblat, Wi-Fi Alliance senior director-regulatory affairs.
“The Pai-era commission has been perhaps the most productive ever in pushing more spectrum out into the market place, and that includes licensed and unlicensed,” emailed Cooley’s Robert McDowell, a former commissioner: “A lot of these initiatives were on the drawing board or well under way long before the COVID crisis, although the sense of urgency due to COVID has become an added atmospheric coloring almost any policy proposal that was already or potentially moving in Washington.”
“Agency after agency … has stepped in to block releasing more spectrum into the market,” said Deborah Collier, Citizens Against Government Waste vice president-policy and government affairs. “The FCC has the authority and the responsibility to take decisive action, and CAGW supports the agency’s actions to counteract attempts to slow-walk regulatory proceedings that are clearly in the public interest.” The FCC must “establish timelines and deadlines with respect to interaction with government agencies and ultimately weigh engineering evidence to reach final decisions that help maintain America’s competitive edge in the race to 5G,” she said.
The auto industry had “20 years to figure out how to use this spectrum and now they are asking for an additional five years,” said Shane Tews, American Enterprise Institute visiting fellow. “I'm anti-spectrum hoarders in general,” she said: “The auto industry needs to get up to speed with the technology on the horizon and give up their sunk cost on this and move forward.”
“If there is one thing that the FCC has made clear with the Ligado decision and the 6 GHz decision it's that it is no longer interested in trying to placate folks who don't have a real engineering case,” said Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld: “In both cases, the FCC took steps to address the real interference concerns, and finally got tired of endless delays by folks making claims without substantial evidence.”
The FCC “will probably just go forward with the proposal largely as written,” said Jeffrey Westling, R Street Institute fellow. The U.S. has one of the largest vehicle safety allocations in the 5.9 GHz band, he noted. “Other countries get by with less,” Westling said: “Instead of worry about finding where to move vehicle safety, it would be much easier to just keep them where they have been while still creating the 160 MHz unlicensed channel that can be utilized more quickly than 6 GHz."
“The underlying DSRC technology is based on legacy radios that,” according to Transportation Department studies, “have significant performance problems and auto companies have largely avoided installing it on cars,” said Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Brent Skorup. State departments of transportation don’t have the money or personnel to build and maintain an extensive roadside intelligent transportation system network, he said. “The 5.9 GHz band is largely vacant and hasn’t lived up to the 1999 optimism for ITS technology.”