NTIA Technical Report Recommends Protections for Federal 5.9 GHz Incumbents

in December to examine revised rules, reallocating 45 MHz for sharing with Wi-Fi, 20 MHz for cellular vehicle to everything (C-V2X) and possibly 10 MHz for dedicated short-range communications (DSRC). DOD “operates fixed and mobile radars for surveillance (including airborne surveillance), test range instrumentation, airborne transponders, and testing in support of the tracking and control of airborne vehicles,” said an NTIA technical report filed last week in docket 19-138. NASA and the Department of Energy “operate radar systems in the 5.9 GHz band,” it said. Operations proposed by the FCC’s NPRM must protect higher-priority federal systems in the 5.9 GHz band, where primary allocations include federal radiolocation services. The report lists locations across the U.S. where extra protections are needed. For indoor use, “the analysis indicates that exclusion zones are not necessary to protect federal operations,” the report said: “NTIA recommends rules be put in place to help ensure the indoor devices are not deployed outdoors and that expedient and effective corrective measures be in place to eliminate interference should it occur.” It recommends C-V2X users be required to comply with rules already in place for DSRC. A broad coalition of groups, on the left and right, plus wireless ISPs, sent a letter to the White House Monday supporting reallocation. The 5.9 GHz band is “mostly unused in the vast majority of the country,” the letter said. It “can make an almost-immediate difference for better, faster, higher-capacity Wi-Fi because the band is directly adjacent to existing 5 GHz unlicensed spectrum,” it said: “This band supports Wi-Fi for millions of consumer devices and critical functions like medical telemetry, airport operations, container ports, railway monitoring and logistics, and the industrial Internet of Things networks used in manufacturing and retail fulfillment.” Among the 97 signers: the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, Engine, Public Knowledge, the Open Technology Institute at New America, the R Street Institute and Less Government.