Graves, colleagues denounce FCC’s proposed reallocation of radio safety frequency band

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), ranking member of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, this week joined 37 members of the committee in urging the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its plan to reallocate some of the nation’s radio safety frequency band to unlicensed operators.

The FCC in December 2019 released a notice of proposed rulemaking to reallocate more than half of the 5.9 gigahertz (GHz) radio frequency band, also known as the Safety Band, to unlicensed operations, such as Wi-Fi, according to a Jan. 22 letter sent to the FCC commissioners by Rep. Graves and his colleagues on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, including its chairman, U.S. Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-OR).

“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,” wrote Rep. Graves and his fellow committee members.

The congressmen also wrote that they concurred with a Nov. 20, 2019 letter sent by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai stating that her department had “significant concerns” with the FCC’s proposal, which she wrote “represents a major shift in the FCC’s regulation of the 5.9 GHz band and jeopardizes the significant transportation safety benefits that the allocation of this band was meant to foster.”

Additionally, Rep. Graves and his colleagues acknowledged that while the FCC has expressed concern about the slow pace of development and deployment of vehicle safety technologies in the 5.9 GHz band, the commission’s recent actions to temporarily freeze the acceptance and processing of related license applications “have only exacerbated the problem and upended any progress being made.”

Members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee remain “deeply concerned with how the FCC’s actions have continued to create uncertainty for the private sector that this band will not be available in the future,” according to their letter.

Rep. Graves and the congressmen urged the FCC to reconsider its proposed rulemaking, particularly because “there remain serious outstanding questions about the potential implications of this approach that could significantly undermine safety benefits to the driving public.”