FCC Casts Wide Net in Seeking Comment on Future of GPS
The FCC on Thursday released drafts of the three items that Chairman Brendan Carr teed up for a vote at the commission’s March 27 open meeting. The GPS notice of inquiry asks about a wide range of possible alternatives to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), including terrestrial-based and space-based solutions. The FCC also released drafts of two 911 items (see 2503050062).
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The GPS NOI is broad in its sweep and mentions NextNav’s proposal for PNT in the 900 MHz band 19 times. Among other alternatives it explores are using TV broadcast infrastructure, ground-based transmitters and user equipment positioning. The draft notes that support for user equipment positioning is integrated into existing 3rd Generation Partnership Project mobile broadband systems.
The NOI also notes that other countries have global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) “similar to GPS, such as Galileo, GLONASS, and BeiDou, that operate on the same frequencies as well as additional frequencies and frequency bands.” New satellites that may use other frequencies are reportedly “being developed to provide GNSS services that are more accurate and provide better coverage, among other benefits, than some current GNSS satellite signals,” the draft says.
“To obtain a complete picture of possibilities, we seek comment on a full range of PNT technologies or solutions, existing and in development, applicable considerations from a domestic and international perspective, as well as the actions the Commission can take to support their implementation,” it says. “While this NOI focuses on complementary PNT, we also welcome comment on alternative RF-based technologies and solutions.” Commenters are asked to discuss “not only technologies or solutions and the status of development, but also costs and benefits.”
A draft Further NPRM on 911 wireless location accuracy proposes changes designed to make it easier for first responders to find callers. It’s the FCC’s sixth FNPRM on the topic. “Better location information from the outset of a 911 call translates to time saved during a response, and that time saved translates to lives saved,” the draft says.
It proposes to require that carriers provide vertical (Z-axis) information to public safety answering points (PSAP) measured in height above ground level, “which is likely to be more actionable for first responders” than the currently required height above ellipsoid. It proposes to require that the wireless industry launch a testbed that will “validate the performance of vertical location technologies in dense urban, urban, suburban, and rural environments rather than allowing validation of such technologies based on aggregating or averaging their performance across environments.”
The FCC also seeks comment on whether carriers should develop a “centralized, online complaint portal for 911 authorities to report location accuracy problems to wireless providers.” The draft proposes to get input on whether to eliminate “certain legacy 911 rules that have been superseded by the current 911 location accuracy rules or are otherwise obsolete.”
The location-accuracy FNPRM also focuses on the importance of dispatchable location, a commission focus since 2015 (see 1501290066).
While the commission’s rules require providers “to deliver dispatchable location -- public safety’s preferred solution -- whenever technically feasible, the number of wireless 911 calls currently being delivered with dispatchable location is very small compared to the number of calls delivered with coordinate-based location information,” the draft says. It seeks comment on “mechanisms to increase the number of wireless 911 calls for which the … provider delivers dispatchable location information (i.e., street address plus in-building identification of the caller’s office, apartment, or room number), rather than coordinate-based information, to the PSAP.”
The draft FNPRM on next-generation 911 proposes updating the reasonable reliability standards covering NG911 service providers to better guarantee reliable 911 traffic delivery to NG911 delivery points. It also proposes NG911 interoperability requirements for interstate transfer of 911 traffic between Emergency Services IP Network providers to improve PSAP call transfer capabilities when there’s a service disruption.
The FNPRM suggests changing the certification and oversight mechanisms in the FCC’s 911 reliability rules to address reliability and interoperability in NG911 systems. It proposes letting state and local 911 authorities get reliability and interoperability certifications directly from covered 911 service providers. NG911 "has inherent reliability and accessibility advantages over legacy 911, [but] our experience with recent outages affecting 911 suggests that some critical elements of NG911 networks may not be adequately covered by our existing 911 reliability rules,” the FCC said in the draft.