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Comment by tw04 | Hacker News Reader

Except Pai did that because of US cellular companies lobbying him... he's giving that spectrum to 5Ghz wifi so that automakers are FORCED to use cellular providers.

https://ecfsapi.fcc.gov/file/1109637413744/2020.11.06%20DOT%...

https://ih.advfn.com/stock-market/stock-news/83766758/welcom...

This isn't a good thing... this is Pai once again siding with private profit over public good. The fact the spectrum is going to the public 5Ghz spectrum is just to prevent outrage from the general public.

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Automakers are hoarding the spectrum citing some pie in the sky safety stuff. Not a single car was ever shipped with that tech. I'd rather have my WiFi router running reliably rather than some promise ware hoarding it.

To put some real numbers to this notion:

> But as FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today said, "99.9943 percent of the 274 million registered vehicles on the road in the United States still don't have DSRC on-board units." Only 15,506 vehicles have been equipped with the technology, he said.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/fcc-adds-45mhz-t...

Considering the American car market sells 17M+ cars annually this is bad progress after two decades.

Your wifi will never get any better. There is a limited amount of spectrum, and practically no one is aware that the channel bonding required to get higher bandwidth means there are just a few distinct channels even in 5GHz. So everyone keeps bonding channels, turning up the power, even though the best solution is for everyone to use 20Mhz slices at the lowest power possible. Then you add channel hopping and mesh networks soaking up even more lanes for intercommunication and here we are.

It's a great example of the tragedy of the commons.

The only hope for dense areas is transmitting in frequencies that don't go through walls and hard wiring each room with something close to line of sight radios integrated into light fixtures, but I'm not sure they've figured out the wiring for that.

Meanwhile my $10 CAT5e cable continues to chug along...

So true. Shannon seems to get lost in the noise (sic).

Cadillac shipped DSRC in the CTS sedan: https://media.cadillac.com/media/us/en/cadillac/news.detail....

Volkswagen is shipping DSRC in their latest Golf: https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/volkswagen-new-golf-cars-...

"Automakers" aren't hoarding anything. If you read the cited links, the DOT is the one asking to retain the spectrum.

As for it not being used yet: that's because the technology wasn't there yet... The first trial was deployed in 2017. You're the guy declaring electric vehicles a failure in 1990 because battery technology wasn't ready yet.

https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5888501

https://www.fcc.gov/wireless/bureau-divisions/mobility-divis...

I was an infosec contractor at DOT'S NHTSA while the vehicle-to-vehicle (V2V) workgroup was in it's begginings. I recall infosec leadership I respected being against it while short-term political appointees and key industry players like VW pushed it. Maybe we are better off without it?

Then they should request the spectrum after the tech is available, not over a decade before.

> automakers are FORCED to use cellular providers

Choose to use cellular providers. They don't need to put any kind of remote access backdoor or spyware at all.

The first thing I plan to do after buying a new car is to rip out the cellular and gps antennas.

If your GPS antenna is doing any transmitting, you likely have other problems.

If the GPS antenna is separate then you're probably fine leaving it, unless you are worried about IF leakage.

If you rip out the antennas, will all the transmit power emit from the signal traces on the PCB instead?

The reason automakers include cellular radios already is to do app-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-internet communications. Things like Internet radio or unlocking your car from your phone need the Internet, and cellular providers offer that. Presumably at a cut-rate deal compared to general-purpose cell plans.

The spectrum in question was being held for short-range vehicle-to-vehicle communications (Wi-Fi range stuff, hence why this spectrum will be... used for Wi-Fi).

So they're probably going to have the cellular connection anyways. And technically, it's not impossible for them to still use Wi-Fi bands... they're just likely going to have to contend with some more interference. I think more than likely, vehicle-to-vehicle communication should only be an additional indicator, not something to be fully relied upon, since other cars can "lie" to yours.

Wouldn't allowing automakers to use it also benefit private profit?

Yes, just not the profit of those paying Pai.

I don't want my car to use that spectrum or any other. I don't feel that the manufacturer (or Google or Facebook) needs to track my vehicle usage, and I don't wish for my car to pay any heed to signals emitted by untrusted unknown transmitters.

Once the technology is actually ready, car manufacturers can request spectrum again. Spectrum should be used, not held in lack of use. There's rules around spectrum that if you don't use it, you lose it.

OTOH, it's difficult (impossible?) to un-allocate spectrum that has been put into use at any point. Perhaps there are foreseeable uses in the medium term that we should be reserving spectrum for, rather than auctioning our future resources off to today's rent-seekers.

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