O'Rielly: Market, Not FCC, Will Decide on C-V2X or DSRC for 5.9 GHz Band

Commissioner Mike O’Rielly assured the Washington Auto Show Thursday the FCC doesn’t plan to pick winners and losers in the 5.9 GHz band and will let the market decide. O’Rielly predicted the agency could make a decision on its NPRM this summer. The proposal would allow for both cellular vehicle-to-everything and dedicated short-range communications technologies, he said. “We’re going to see what takes off.” Some in the auto industry understand what the FCC is trying to do here, O’Rielly told us: “Others have an agenda and a purpose, and I bless them for it and that’s all good, but I don’t know that it’s going to change our direction.” Commissioners agreed 5-0 in December to examine revised rules for the swath, reallocating 45 MHz for Wi-Fi, with 20 MHz reserved for C-V2X and 10 for DSRC. Opponents of the NPRM should drop their rhetoric that the FCC is putting lives in danger, O’Rielly said. “Stop all the hyperbole and let’s get down to math,” he said: The need for automotive safety and for spectrum is “a balancing act.” No one on the [show] floor is planning to offer DSRC in any vehicle anytime soon,” O’Rielly said: “The previous offers have been withdrawn.” O’Rielly will “defer” to Chairman Ajit Pai on working with the Transportation Department on the 5.9 GHz band. O’Rielly isn’t ready to fully embrace autonomous vehicles. “I’m not anywhere close to that,” he said. “My dad didn’t even like to drive an automatic. He was more of a manual guy.” O’Rielly noted his father sold used cars and a General Motors plant was in his hometown. The move to C-V2X has been a theme at the show. Audi, the Virginia Department of Transportation and Qualcomm Technologies announced plans Wednesday for a C-V2X pilot on northern Virginia roads in Q3 (see 2001220028). Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, said during a presentation Thursday that driverless cars will cut costs and are important especially in rural markets. Uber drivers tend to “stay just in the city core,” he said: “They don’t go out too far because they’re running empty and that’s not high utilization and that’s not cost effective,” he said. “A self-driving car 'can sit and wait'” and will go “more places," he added. "It gives more access.”