Automakers Want Reimbursement for DSRC Investment

technology (see 2011180043). The Alliance for Automotive Innovation wants a program in which unlicensed users in the lower 45-MHz would have to pay to move DSRC. The alliance cited costs incurred by states and cities. “The request for reasonable compensation is a bipartisan concern,” the group said: “It would be extraordinary for the Commission to transfer spectrum worth billions of dollars from traffic safety use by the auto industry to commercial use by the cable and unlicensed communities without at least requiring the new entrants to pay relocation costs.” The alliance wants more spectrum for auto safety. The Intelligent Transportation Society of America urged reimbursement “consistent with almost thirty years of precedent” that “any licensees displaced by the Commission’s action be provided with reasonable compensation of their expenses incurred in complying with an otherwise unfunded mandate.” Paying relocation costs would be “unworkable and unprecedented,” NCTA countered. Information from DSRC users “demonstrates that all or the vast majority of the asserted costs to those licensees are attributable to the transition from DSRC equipment and operations to C-V2X equipment and operations,” NCTA said: “None of the parties seeking to require consumers, schools, and businesses who purchase Wi-Fi devices to compensate them explain why the costs of shifting from DSRC to C-V2X should fall on broadband consumers.” There's “no obligation to reimburse incumbents for their investments in a failed technology … that never deployed and left virtually the entire … band vacant nationwide,” said Public Knowledge and New America. The auto industry is “shifting to C-V2X whether or not the Commission moved to reallocate the 5.9 GHz band,” the groups said. The Wi-Fi Alliance said a reimbursement program would require congressional action: When the FCC has required that moving costs be paid, it's “in the context of the reallocated spectrum being licensed through competitive bidding, to new entrants, with the new entrants paying relocation costs.” The 5G Automotive Association urged the FCC to act quickly on rules for C-V2X in the band. The group said there's broad agreement the proposed emission limit for the unlicensed use of the band outdoors won’t protect auto safety. T-Mobile sought “flexible technical rules that will allow C-V2X operators to innovate” and protections for safety from Wi-Fi interference.