Cars, that would tend to fulfill a safety vision decades in the making, that can automatically brake to avoid collisions is being rolled out by General Motors Co. The company announced the rolling out of a sedan laden with gadgets that track other cars on the road to stop automatically.

However this move is being viewed with a certain degree of skepticism when the Cadillac CTS arrives in 2017 Cadillac as there is already a clash with the Silicon Valley’s wireless aspirations and Detroit’s dream of cars talking to cars.

Some of the airwaves dedicated to the car-safety systems 17 years ago are being claimed by the tech companies. That was the time when there was no rush for new frequencies by smartphones and mobile apps. Hence this could result in GM, Toyota Motor Corp. and other automakers forced to share the frequencies.

According to CTIA, a wireless trade group, U.S. mobile data traffic tripled from 2013 to 2015. U.S. mobile data traffic will grow six-fold by 2020, according to a forecast by Cisco Systems Inc.

In order to assure safety, carmakers say they need unfettered use of the airwaves.

Annemarie Pender, spokeswoman for the Association of Global Automakers, a Washington-based trade group representing 14 car companies including Toyota and Honda Motor Co. said that dividing the airwaves may invalidate industry testing already done and “delay the deployment of life-saving technologies”.

“Our view is that safety delayed is safety denied,” Pender said.

However, services already available on smartphones — including entertainment, traffic warnings, and mapping, is being sought to be offered by car makers, critics say.

“The auto industry has been very successful in pitching this as being about our great concern for life and safety, while these guys just want you to stream cat videos and Netflix while you’re in your car,” Harold Feld, senior vice president at the policy group Public Knowledge, said in an interview.

Expecting to finish testing in January, the Federal Communications Commission is examining ways to share. Until after more consultations with safety regulators at the Transportation Department, a final decision is not actually expected.

Carmakers say they may be able to share some as long as safety isn’t disturbed and that they would need all the airwaves the federal government granted them in 1999.They say changes may cause delay.

“We get that spectrum is a finite resource, and there isn’t enough to go around. At the same time, we are very, very, very committed to vehicle-to-vehicle communication, so we’re concerned about finding the right sharing solution that doesn’t upend our technology at this stage of development,” said Hilary Cain, director of technology and innovation policy at Toyota in Washington.

To address the dispute, there are several proposals that have evolved. Backed by the auto industry calls for sharing the airwaves, one such proposal is from Cisco that also prioritizes car-safety communications. A rival strategy that allows cars and smartphones share on an equal footing elsewhere and seeks to restrict basic safety functions to part of the airwaves is proposed by Qualcomm Inc. This approach is backed by some tech policy groups.

Harry Lightsey, executive director of global connected customer experience for the Detroit-based automaker said that GM knows the vehicle-to-vehicle technology in the 2017 Cadillacs would work under the Cisco protocol, which doesn’t change the channel configuration. It’s not sure the Qualcomm proposal would work.

“We’re putting hardware into vehicles based on the current channel configuration. All of that hardware would have to be changed. That’s obviously a concern,” Lightsey said in an interview.

The sharing of the auto airwaves is favored by companies like Qualcomm, Google, Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., all members of the Information Technology Industry Council, the Washington-based trade group said in filings.

(Adapted from Bloomberg)

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