WASHINGTON — The Intelligent Transportation Society of America and the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials on Wednesday challenged the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) November decision to shift much of a key spectrum block set aside for auto safety to accommodate the burgeoning number of wireless devices.
The legal challenge, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, seeks to reverse the FCC’s reallocation of 60 percent of the 5.9 GHz band spectrum block.
Last year, the U.S. Transportation Department said the FCC plan was “a particularly dangerous regulatory approach when public safety is at stake.”
The spectrum block was reserved in 1999 for automakers to develop technology to allow vehicles to talk to each other and traffic infrastructure to avoid crashes, but has so far gone largely unused.