Car Talk: ITS Welcomes House Interest in 5-GHz Spectrum

Thomas Kern, interim president of ITS America: The High Tech Transportation Association, said he welcomes the House Energy & Commerce Committee's decision to wade into the 5-GHz issue.

"We applaud House Energy and Commerce Committee leaders for their thoughtful, collaborative approach to spectrum policy and for their efforts to increase unlicensed spectrum without putting life-saving connected-vehicle technologies at risk," said Kern. "Wi-Fi and vehicle-to-vehicle communication are both revolutionary innovations, and we are looking forward to working with Congress to advance solutions to expand Wi-Fi while also accelerating the adoption of next-generation crash avoidance technologies on our nation's roads."

The makers of Vehicle-to-Vehicle (V2V) communications systems want to make sure that opening the upper portion of the 5-GHz band to unlicensed Wi-Fi does not interfere with current and future intelligent vehicle systems, like crash avoidance. Those systems are currently licensed operators in the band.

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John Eggerton

Contributing editor John Eggerton has been an editor and/or writer on media regulation, legislation and policy for over four decades, including covering the FCC, FTC, Congress, the major media trade associations, and the federal courts. In addition to Multichannel News and Broadcasting + Cable, his work has appeared in Radio World, TV Technology, TV Fax, This Week in Consumer Electronics, Variety and the Encyclopedia Britannica.