NextNav: Time Is Ripe for FCC NPRM on Its Plan for GPS Alternative
NextNav is hopeful that the FCC will move forward soon on an NPRM following up on its March notice of inquiry asking about the wide range of possible alternatives to GPS for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT), said Renee Gregory, the company's vice president of regulatory affairs. Opponents of NextNav’s proposal to use 900 MHz spectrum for PNT are less anxious for the FCC to take next steps.
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“Our bottom line is we think the commission has all the information it needs now for issuing an NPRM,” Gregory said in an interview Friday. It's “a necessary next step to enable 5G-based PNT, which we think is really, really important.” An NPRM would also give the FCC an opportunity to address questions that regulators may still have, she added.
“We aren’t claiming that we can solve every situation,” Gregory said. NextNav sees its proposal and one by NAB to use ATSC 3.0 for PNT “as the only two terrestrial solutions right now that we require FCC action to move forward,” she said. “There are few if any comments filed” on the NOI “to proposals other than NextNav’s, which I think is telling.” Gregory said she’s less familiar with space-based solutions.
In July and August, NextNav filed “very significant” studies at the FCC identifying the economic benefits of making greater use of the 900 MHz band and addressing the interference concerns of Wi-Fi advocates and the tolling industry, Gregory said. “We feel very confident about our technical and economic analyses.” Gregory, a former Google official, was also an adviser to FCC Chairmen Tom Wheeler and Julius Genachowski, as well as a veteran of NTIA and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.
Chairman Brendan Carr “was certainly very fast in issuing a very comprehensive NOI on PNT issues,” Gregory said. The comment cycle closed in May and offered “a very robust record,” which could take staff members some time to work through, she noted, conceding that they have been very busy since Carr took over as chair in January. But since the comment cycle closed, there hasn’t been a lot filed in the record from NextNav critics raising new questions or providing additional information, she added. The company also had “very good conversations” with FCC Wireless Bureau and Office of Engineering and Technology staff.
Gregory said NextNav views its proposal as consistent with Carr’s focus on making spectrum available for 5G and shoring up telecom security. “This is U.S. PNT for national security,” she said. “It’s also 15 MHz of one sub-1 GHz spectrum that is suitable for 5G data transmission in additional to enabling PNT.” The U.S. doesn’t have a widespread backup for GPS, “and our adversaries do,” she noted.
Critics of NextNav’s proposal disagreed that the time is ripe for the FCC to move forward on an NPRM.
The lower 900 MHz band “is already home to billions of Part 15 devices operating under a delicate and carefully balanced spectrum-sharing framework,” emailed Alex Roytblat, vice president of regulatory affairs at the Wi-Fi Alliance. NextNav’s proposal “threatens to upend that balance and cause widespread harmful interference to existing operations, as Wi-Fi Alliance and others have repeatedly warned.” NextNav also “continues to ignore the obvious reality that its own network would be highly vulnerable to interference from existing Part 15 devices,” he added.
The Z-Wave Alliance doesn’t believe there’s “enough real-world testing for the FCC to move forward with an NPRM at this time,” Chairman Avi Rosenthal said Monday. “The alternative methods of creating a lasting backup to location and timing services that will not impact the lower 900 MHz spectrum are very viable, and the FCC should continue to evaluate those solutions.”
The LoRa Alliance “highlighted several times that the implementation of NextNav’s proposal for the lower 900 MHz band would threaten the use of current operations in the band,” emailed alliance Chair Olivier Beaujard. “There are alternative solutions to NextNav’s proposal that would not impact the lower 900 MHz spectrum,” and “we strongly encourage the FCC to consider those solutions.”
Lisa Dyer, executive director of the GPS Innovation Alliance, said in an email that space-based PNT approaches “offer a number of advantages, from providing geographic coverage across the U.S. and the world to offering resilience against both natural and man-made disruptions that can impact terrestrial PNT.” The group “continues to actively engage with the FCC on PNT issues, and encourages the commission to support complementary PNT solutions that leverage a diversity of orbits, frequencies and spectrum.”