Auto Alliance Promising 5M V2X Radios if FCC Drops 5.9 GHz Plan Meets Skepticism

The Alliance for Automotive Innovation said the auto industry committed to deploy at least 5 million radios on vehicles and roadway infrastructure within five years if the FCC preserves all 75 MHz of the 5.9 GHz band for safety. “V2X communication technologies … allow vehicles to share real-time safety-critical information with each other and with infrastructure and other road users,” the alliance said Thursday: “These applications promise significant safety and societal benefits, including crash reductions that can save lives and provide economic, environmental, and transportation efficiencies.” The group made the commitment in a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. DOT didn’t comment. WifiForward slammed the plan. “Even in the best case, this pledge would be ineffective,” a spokesperson emailed: “Less than 2% of all cars on the road would be equipped with one of two competing V2X technologies, which means a motorist’s chance of encountering another car equipped with a compatible V2X device in a crash-imminent situation is less than one in a hundred.” "Given that about 17 million new vehicles have been sold in the United States in each of the last five years, this is not an impressive commitment," an FCC spokesperson emailed. "It only reinforces the need for the FCC to reform the use of the 5.9 GHz band so that it is put to its best use." That "the auto industry conditions this rather modest deployment on continued control of more spectrum than they need reinforces a false choice,” said Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America. “As regulators around the world have concluded, the auto industry can deploy critical V2X safety communications on the 30 megahertz at the top of the band, just as the FCC has proposed.” Commissioner Mike O'Rielly Thursday predicted the FCC could take up an order reallocating the band this summer (see 2004230059).