In a speech at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials 2019 annual meeting in St. Louis, Don Butler (seen above) – executive director for Connected Vehicles and Services at Ford Motor Company – stressed that reserving the 5.9 GHz wireless communication spectrum for transportation safety use is critical to the future of vehicle-to-vehicle connectivity.

[Above photo by Cathy Morrison/Missouri DOT.]

He stressed that technology, which allows vehicles to talk to one another and to the infrastructure around them, will rely on the 5.9 GHz safety spectrum currently set aside by the Federal Communications Commission for transportation-only use.

In his speech, Butler expressed serious concerns – ones shared by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and others – that some FCC officials want to open the 5.9 GHz spectrum to non-safety uses which he said could jeopardize the efficacy of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure connections.