FCC Wants Market to Decide 5.9 GHz Winners, O'Rielly Tells Auto Show
Commissioner Mike O’Rielly assured the Washington Auto Show Thursday the FCC doesn’t plan to pick winners and losers in the 5.9 GHz band and will let the market decide. O’Rielly predicted the agency could make a decision on its NPRM this summer. The proposal would allow for both cellular vehicle-to-everything and dedicated short-range communications technologies, he said. “We’re going to see what takes off.”
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Some in the auto industry understand what the FCC is trying to do here, O’Rielly told us: “Others have an agenda and a purpose, and I bless them for it and that’s all good, but I don’t know that it’s going to change our direction.” Commissioners agreed 5-0 in December to examine revised rules for the swath, reallocating 45 MHz for Wi-Fi, with 20 MHz reserved for C-V2X and 10 for DSRC (see 1912180019).
Opponents of the NPRM should drop their rhetoric that the FCC is putting lives in danger, O’Rielly said. “Stop all the hyperbole and let’s get down to math,” he said: The need for automotive safety and for spectrum is “a balancing act.” Spectrum is limited, he said. “There’s a consistent fight for bandwidth at the FCC. That’s what we do on a daily basis.” He told reporters similar Tuesday (see 2001210028).
“No one on the [show] floor is planning to offer DSRC in any vehicle anytime soon,” O’Rielly said: “The previous offers have been withdrawn.” O’Rielly will “defer” to Chairman Ajit Pai on working with the Transportation Department on the 5.9 GHz band. Wednesday, 38 members of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee sent commissioners a letter expressing alarm (see 2001220065): “The FCC's proposal undercuts the potential to prevent many of the 37,000 traffic fatalities each year by impeding the development and deployment of safety-critical technologies.”
O’Rielly hadn't fully digested the seven-page House letter. “There have been members on both sides of this issue and I anticipate there’ll be more,” he said. Without a rule revamp, C-V2X won’t be possible on a broader basis, O’Rielly said: “You need us to do something.”
O’Rielly was asked about his decision to “take spectrum” away from DSRC. “It was a unanimous decision to move forward after a 20-year process,” he replied. DSRC had “a lot of opportunity to succeed and it didn’t happen,” he said: “We did our homework.”
The FCC is working hard to make more spectrum available for 5G in the C band and at 3.1-3.55 GHz (see 2001230061), O’Rielly said. “We benefited from being first to 4G,” he said: “We can lose that of we don’t take the concrete steps that we need.”
O’Rielly isn’t ready to fully embrace autonomous vehicles. “I’m not anywhere close to that,” he said. “My dad didn’t even like to drive an automatic. He was more of a manual guy.” O’Rielly noted his father sold used cars and a General Motors plant was in his hometown.
Driverless vehicles will require frequencies in different bands, O’Rielly told us. “This is one of many [bands] that will have to be used.” The FCC has allocated spectrum for other radars that will probably be part of the equation, he said. A lot of the radars are operational today, “have kind of made DSRC obsolete” and “will be available,” he said.
The move to C-V2X has been a theme at the show. In a demo in the backyard of Washington policymakers, Audi, the Virginia Department of Transportation and Qualcomm Technologies announced plans Wednesday for a C-V2X pilot on northern Virginia roads in Q3 (see 2001220028).
Eric Meyhofer, head of Uber's Advanced Technologies Group, said during a presentation that driverless cars will cut costs and are important especially in rural markets. Drivers tend to “stay just in the city core,” he said: “They don’t go out too far because they’re running empty and that’s not high utilization and that’s not cost effective,” he said. “A self-driving car 'can sit and wait'” and will go “more places. … It gives more access.”