Navigation Co. Says Criticisms Of 900 MHz Plan Overblown

By Christopher Cole
Law360 (September 23, 2024, 8:08 PM EDT) - A navigation company that wants to use portions of the lower 900 megahertz band to set up an Earth-based broadband and geolocation network has told the Federal Communications Commission that critics' concerns about interference are overstated.

NextNav told the FCC late Friday that filings at the FCC against the plan appear to "exaggerate the interference environment" around the proposed spectrum set-asides and that no other plan has offered a similar navigation system free to taxpayers.

NextNav has asked the FCC to overhaul the band running from 902-928 MHz, allowing the company to use 15 MHz for a 5G-based terrestrial positioning, navigation and timing network to backstop the Global Positioning System. NextNav would also provide broadband service.

"The key takeaway is this: No one else has proposed a credible solution to the widely recognized and increasingly urgent problem that the United States has no wide-scale [terrestrial positioning, navigation, and timing] service to complement and back up GPS where the GPS signal is obstructed or when outages occur," NextNav said.

"Even many of those opposed to NextNav's petition acknowledge that a terrestrial complement and backup to a satellite-based [positioning, navigation, and timing] service is critically important to safeguarding U.S. national security, public safety, economy, and way of life," the company added.

NextNav also said there is no anticipated plan by the U.S. government to fund such a network, and that it has "actively engaged" with the federal government and licensed users in the lower 900 MHz band about the NextNav proposal's technical details.

NextNav's plan has seen significant opposition in recent weeks, with public interest groups saying that approval would contradict the FCC's rules and policy to promote coexistence in the spectrum. The groups noted that the lower 900 MHz is the only low-band spectrum available for unlicensed use and supports Internet of Things and other device connectivity.

In a recent filing, advocacy groups said the proposal amounts to spectrum windfall for the company and compresses the existing users into the 11 MHz remaining for their operations, making interference likely.

Under the plan, the FCC would create a spectrum block for the broadband network with a 5 MHz uplink in the 902-907 MHz range and a 10 MHz downlink in the 918-928 MHz portion. NextNav says it would ensure coexistence with licensed incumbent operations while working with unlicensed users to avoid interference.

NextNav highlighted those efforts in its filing Friday, saying NextNav values both licensed and unlicensed users. "NextNav, however, does not believe that the promise of the lower 900 MHz band should stop with the services it supports today. The band can be modernized to allow more efficient and intensive use, including providing first responders, businesses, and consumers throughout the United States with long overdue access to a [backup] and complement to GPS, and American consumers with more robust broadband service offerings."

The company also said that technical analyses of the interference potential to unlicensed uses show that, using "realistic assumptions," coexistence is possible.

But NexNav also pointed out that unlicensed users are already operating in the lower 900 MHz, despite interference from many others, "precisely because unlicensed technologies are designed and built to operate under such heavy interference conditions."

Unlicensed devices should be, and in most cases are, "much more adept at handling interference" than the plan's critics appear willing to admit, NexNav said.

"Because these devices are not entitled to protection from harmful interference, they must be designed to be robust and adaptable to the ever-present interference from other unlicensed devices as well as from licensed operations that enjoy superior rights in the band," it said.

In a statement Monday, NextNav CEO Mariam Sorond said the company was "pleased the FCC leadership and expert staff can begin to evaluate NextNav's proposal, which is the only actionable plan to meet the urgent need for a widescale [terrestrial positioning, navigation, and timing] solution at no cost to taxpayers."

"Our innovative solution provides a crucial complement and backup to a vital service that underpins American commerce, public safety, and national security - expanding the promise of the lower 900 MHz band to unleash 15 MHz for 5G broadband spectrum while preserving numerous coexistence possibilities," Sorond said.

An FCC spokesperson declined to comment Monday.

-Editing by Jay Jackson Jr.

All Content © 2003-2024, Portfolio Media, Inc.

Public link

Please use the above public link if you want to share this noodl on another website.