6 Months After DC Circuit Argument Industry Waiting for Next Major Steps on 5.9 GHz

Meanwhile, industry officials told us, the Transportation Department has a study underway of potential interference of unlicensed use of the band to potential cellular-vehicle-to-everything deployments and is collaborating with NTIA. Initial comments are due Thursday on a December waiver request by proponents of C-V2X use of the 5.9 GHz band asking to be able to deploy as soon as possible (see 2112140070).

“Despite the 5-0 adoption of the [5.9 GHz] order, like 6 GHz,” Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel “is waiting for the D.C. Circuit before moving forward,” said a Wi-Fi advocate. Industry officials said they’re surprised it has taken the D.C. Circuit, which heard arguments in January, half a year to hand down a decision.

ITS America and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials had appealed the FCC order saying the FCC never consulted adequately with DOT before reallocating the band, which had long been dedicated to auto safety. DOT and the FCC didn’t comment. In what FCC officials saw as an important win for the agency, the D.C. Circuit in December mostly upheld the 6 GHz order, which opened that band for sharing with Wi-Fi (see 2112280047). Wi-Fi advocates are still waiting for further FCC action following that decision (see 2207060036).

“I don’t hear much about where unlicensed is going in 5.9 right now,” said Kristian Stout, International Center for Law & Economics director-innovation policy: “The D.C. Circuit case is just a huge point of uncertainty at the moment.”

“Things are ready to start moving once the case comes out, assuming no surprises,” predicted Public Knowledge Senior Vice President Harold Feld. “The real question is whether anyone in DOT, or the auto industry, still cares, in a serious way,” he said: “DOT was supposed to issue some report that was going to reignite the fight, but they haven't.”

Wireless ISPs received more than 200 grants of special temporary authority in 2020 to use the bottom 45 MHz segment to expand the capacity of their rural broadband deployment during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and those grants have been routinely renewed since by the FCC.

“We hope this gets resolved soon,” a Wireless ISP Association spokesperson emailed.

5.9 GHz “has a very direct and important impact for WISPs and for fixed wireless” since the early days of the pandemic, said Richard Bernhardt, national spectrum adviser to WISPA. “It has proved to be very useful, because an awful lot of WISPs have used it covering an enormous amount of customers,” he said. The need for spectrum remains and WISPs hope the STAs are made permanent, he said.

The band offers 45 MHz within the reach of a software-defined radio that operates at 5.8 GHz, an unlicensed band, Bernhardt said. Added to 6 GHz, “you have a very good and effective grouping of frequencies,” he said. A delay in FCC decisions on the 5.8 GHz band “is very unfortunate because the need hasn’t gone away, in fact, if anything, it has picked up,” he said.

So far, one party, the American Highway Users Alliance, has filed in support of the C-V2X waiver. “We consider that implementation of waivers such as sought by the applicants in this docket would be positive for highway safety,” the alliance said in comments posted Monday in docket 19-138: “Accordingly, we support prompt favorable action by the Commission (FCC) consistent with the authority sought by applicants and future applicants seeking similar authority.” C-V2X can be helpful in getting autonomous vehicles on the road, group said. “Spectrum is an essential component to efforts to deploy AVs and reduce highway fatalities and injuries.”

The FCC has taken some steps this year on 5.9 GHz, including reminding part 90 intelligent transportation system licensees of their responsibility to stop using the lower 45 MHz of the band by July 5, and notify the FCC they had done so by July 20.