Numerous Tech Groups Urge Rejection of Automakers' U-NII-3 Petition

the automaker groups don't show any significant error in agency thinking when it loosened those OOBE limits earlier this year, said a coalition of technology and public interest groups in a filing posted Friday in docket 13-49. The relief the automaker groups seek would unnecessarily harm Wi-Fi in the U-NII-3 band, they said, and an alternative route to addressing auto industry interference concerns would be to move vehicle-to-vehicle crash-avoidance applications from channel 172 to the upper portion of the U-NII-4 band. "This is the perfect moment to make this change" since dedicated short-range communications crash-avoidance device deployment is in its infancy and that relocation would have minimal effect on DSRC, they said. The filers also said stronger OOBE restrictions on heavily used U-NII-3 "would be far more burdensome" than modifying future DSRC plans in channel 172. The joint filers were Aerohive Networks, Broadcom, Charter Communications, Open Technology Institute at New America, Public Knowledge and Ruckus Wireless. In a separate filing, the Information Technology Industry Council also backed rejecting the auto industry petition, saying safety uses of the band deserve protection, but current rules and testing procedures are more than adequate, and the petitioners didn't raise any new interference evidence. If automakers' groups were caught by surprise by the proceeding, "it can only be due to their own lack of attention" since multiple parties' petitions for reconsideration and comments made clear the OOBE limits might be revisited, NCTA said in opposition to the petition. NCTA called the petition "riddled with unsupported assumptions and logical gaps" and echoed the call for moving automakers' devices to the safety channel in the upper U-NII-4 band, which would allow for more efficient U-NII-4 sharing. The auto groups didn't comment Friday. Other interests earlier last week also sided with the telecom groups (see 1606230063).