Deciding the future of the 5 GHz band should not...
Deciding the future of the 5 GHz band should not force a choice between Internet access and safer cars, House Communications Subcommittee Chairman Greg Walden, R-Ore., plans to say Wednesday, at a hearing on that band (http://1.usa.gov/1fzL57r), scheduled to start…
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at 2 p.m. in 2123 Rayburn. The event was originally scheduled to take places during the partial federal shutdown. “The 5 GHz ecosystem is teeming with existing uses,” Walden will say in his opening statement. “From critical government radar systems to commercial satellites, there are a host of licensed services that are already deployed in this band.” Walden will also say 5 GHz is being used for Wi-Fi and that “thanks to technical rules that limit power and require certain mitigation technologies, these systems are currently meeting our licensed and unlicensed needs without interfering with one another.” He called the intelligent transportation potential of 5 GHz “one of the promising, but unrealized, licensed uses of this band.” Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., will say in her opening statement that the FCC “should move expeditiously to harmonize existing rules and make more spectrum available for gigabit Wi-Fi.” The 5 GHz band “is complementary, not a substitute for low-band spectrum below 1 GHz,” she will say: “Simply put, the superior propagation factors found in the television band will unlock new unlicensed innovation, such as rural broadband access that would not be possible in higher bands of spectrum."