Two US senators are urging the country’s Federal Communications Commission to grant vehicle makers, universities and others the ability to use some spectrum to deploy connected vehicle technology aimed at preventing crashes.
The 5.9 GHz spectrum block was reserved in 1999 for the development of technology to allow vehicles to talk to each other to avoid crashes but has so far gone largely unused.
Reuters reports Senators Gary Peters and Cynthia Lummis called on the FCC to approve waiver requests to enable deployment of Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything technology in the spectrum.
The news agency further quotes the Senators as writing: “C-V2X technology is poised to save lives, (and) will pave the way for the future of automobile and transportation infrastructure”.
Reuters adds that the FCC said in November 2020 it intended to offer waivers and has received 18 requests covering 31 entities but none has yet been granted.
There has been a long-running question of the use of the 5.9 GHz spectrum band, with technologists in other industries pushing to use the capacity for uses such as longer-distance wifi.
(Picture – Yay Images)
