Fight Over 5.9 GHz Displayed in FNPRM Comments
Auto industry groups and Wi-Fi advocates clashed in comments on an FCC Further NPRM on sharing 5.9 GHz. Wednesday, ITS America and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.…
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
Circuit to overturn last year’s 5-0 FCC order dividing the band between Wi-Fi and auto safety (see 2106020076). Comments were due Wednesday in FCC docket 19-138. Proposed power limits on unlicensed devices “will fail to protect the 5.895-5.925 GHz band for intelligent transportation system (ITS) operations,” ITS America said. Work with the Department of Transportation “to ensure that the 30 MHz reserved for ITS … is free of harmful interference and usable for [vehicle to everything] technologies,” the group said. The order was “wrong and misguided,” AASHTO said. Protect ITS “from harmful interference” and let DOT and industry “best determine the technology to be used for the next generation of V2X,” Toyota said. The band is critical to the future of Wi-Fi, countered NCTA: “The newly available spectrum will improve the Wi-Fi experience.” Broadcom and Facebook urged taking “the next step by allowing portable devices” at power levels of 23 decibel-milliwatts of equivalent isotropically radiated power. Portable devices “have tremendous potential to bring to the consumer market new and innovative use cases,” they said. Drop plans for exclusion zones protecting federal radars “within which point-to-point and point-to-multipoint devices would be prohibited,” the Wi-Fi Alliance urged. Proposed power limits are adequate to protect V2X based on years of similar operations in the U-NII-3 band, the alliance said. The Wireless ISP Association said unlicensed use is safe for V2X, but the FCC should consider higher power limits for some uses outside of exclusion zones with protections like professional installation. The Alliance for Automotive Innovation petitioned for reconsideration. “Promote the smooth and rapid deployment of cellular [V2X] technology in the upper segment of the 5.9 GHz band by expeditiously issuing licenses to qualified users and requiring unlicensed entrants in the lower 45 megahertz segment … to pay for transitioned licensees’ relocation costs,” the alliance commented: “Implement safeguards to ensure that V2X can operate free from harmful interference.” The 5G Automotive Association asked the FCC to reconsider the order and stay provisions “that would permit unlicensed indoor access points, subordinate devices, and client devices to operate across the entire 5.850-5.895 GHz portion of the 5.9 GHz band beginning on July 2.”