DSRC Advocates Trying to Change FCC's Stance on 5.9 GHz

Safety advocates are seeking meetings and plan to oppose an FCC proposed order reallocating the 5.9 GHz band, said ITS America President Shailen Bhatt in an interview Tuesday. Bhatt hopes the FCC, set to vote on the order in two weeks, will pause to give dedicated short-range communications a final chance to succeed. “We’re disappointed our pleas have fallen on deaf ears so far,” he said: “Experts are being ignored. Data is missing.”

Bhatt’s group has been spearheading the fight against changes. He expects Department of Transportation support. The FCC’s proposed order and Further NPRM would dedicate 45 MHz to unlicensed use and 30 MHz to cellular vehicle-to-everything technology, and it would require DSRC to move to the smaller swath and eventually transition to C-V2X (see 2010280064). FCC officials say a 5-0 vote is likely, with Democrats also supporting more bandwidth for Wi-Fi, though they’re still working through the draft. The commission and federal DOT didn't comment.

“Listen to the experts,” Bhatt said. The head of every DOT in the country is on board, he said. “It’s not like you have this handful of voices,” he said. ITS America will watch the “political landscape” after the election, Bhatt said. “Don’t rush to give away this 45 MHz.”

Bhatt said that as the former top transportation official in Colorado and Delaware, he felt personally responsible when someone died on state roads. The U.S. loses 100 people daily to collisions, he said. “Traffic safety experts view the 5.9 spectrum as the most important thing since the seat belt in terms of reducing fatalities.” ITS America supports giving C-V2X access to the band but not other proposed changes, he said.

“The chairman’s proposal is based on expert engineering, the law, facts, and the public record gathered over the last year,” an FCC spokesperson emailed: “We have reviewed this record thoroughly and have not yet seen any fact-based submissions that dissuade us from our plan to supercharge Wi-Fi and improve auto safety.”

The Governors Highway Safety Association is among those pushing the FCC for a delay. “GHSA has joined with a remarkable range of partners across the highway safety community to urge the federal government to guarantee the integrity of the 5.9 GHz band” for DSRC, said Russ Martin, senior director-policy and government relations. “We need every tool we can get to save lives and prevent injury.”

“This will be a major setback to road safety,” emailed John Bozzella, president of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation. “The FCC’s action -- which presents the very real possibility of harmful interference -- may make the remaining spectrum unusable for the most critical V2X safety applications,” he said. “It’s also essential for enhanced road safety that additional spectrum for V2X be allocated to support further innovation. The United States is the only country in the world seeking to reduce the spectrum available for the next-generation of road safety advancements.”

Continental North America, which has been at the FCC repeatedly on 5.9 GHz, isn’t giving up, said President Bob Lee: “To be deployed on a large scale and to make the biggest safety impact, V2X technology requires a dedicated radio spectrum. The FCC’s intent to split the 5.9 GHz reduces the amount of spectrum available to support the entire V2X system, and as a result could impact V2X deployment for automotive safety and innovation.”

“Adequate research has not been conducted to support" limiting "the dedicated bandwidth dedicated to V2X communications, to allow the operation of unlicensed devices which may interfere with V2X communications and to shift V2X communications” from DSRC to “unproven” C-V2X, emailed Shaun Kildare, Advocates for Highway and Auto Safety senior director-research. “The 5.9 GHz band, which has been reserved for the past two decades for transportation and vehicle-safety related purposes, must be protected, and all new vehicles should be equipped with V2X communications.”

Wi-Fi advocates counter it’s time for the FCC to move. "It is simply incomprehensible that after two decades of reserving valuable spectrum for technology that has not lived up to its promises, some parties continue to advocate for the status quo,” said Alex Roytblat, Wi-Fi Alliance vice president-regulatory affairs. “The need for Wi-Fi access to 5.9 GHz has never been greater, and delaying the decision contradicts common sense and the public interest.”

“Staff is busy fine-tuning” the item “based on input from a wide range of stakeholders,” Michael Calabrese, director of the Wireless Future Program at New America, told us: “Better connections for Americans struggling to work and learn from home is a top priority for all five commissioners, as it should be.” Because the order was already “greatly delayed” to address DOT concerns another delay is unlikely, he said. “There is widespread agreement that the order represents a practical compromise that reflects both the immediate needs of consumers nationwide for a Wi-Fi bandwidth boost, as well as the reality that DSRC is phasing out in favor of C-V2X, which only requires at most 30 MHz for critical safety signaling applications,” Calabrese said. The only “significant concern” for Wi-Fi advocates is making sure the order will allow the software upgrade of existing home routers, he said.