As tropical storm Barry hit Louisiana last month, Entergy Corp. monitored the electric grid using airwaves that have long been reserved for utilities and first responders.
Those signals helped the company manage outages through the storm, but as the world becomes increasingly wireless, U.S. regulators plan to open more of those airwaves to tech companies.
The move pits two of the most powerful U.S. industries against each other, Bloomberg reports. Tech giants including Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. say that the airwaves should be open for use by the next generation of lightning-fast wireless networks. Utilities say the new networks threaten to create interference that could make it harder to restore power during outages.
The airwaves in the 6 gigahertz range used by utilities, pipeline operators, police and fire departments and others happen to be ideally positioned on the spectrum to accommodate growing 5G networks.
The ongoing debate comes as the FCC is under orders from Congress to open up more airwaves for broadband service. The move “could be a big boost to our nation’s 5G future,” the agency’s chairman, Ajit Pai, said last year as it proposed the change. Read the full story.
