Lawmakers Grill DOD Officials on Ligado, GPS Fight

摘要

Two of the most important technologies in the current digital era are pitted against each other in a perplexing debate about the future of high-speed wireless technologies. On one side is the Space Force's constellation of Global Positioning System satellites. On the other is the future of 5G-or fifth-generation-wireless technology. In the middle is a thin band of spectrum that the Defense Department believes is vital to the accuracy and reliability of GPS timing and positioning data and that the Federal Communications Commission has agreed should be available for 5G transmission. The FCC ruled in April in favor of allowing Ligado Networks to build ground terminals for a broadband Internet network in the electromagnetic spectrum's L-band, near the spectrum occupied by GPS signals. Weeks later, Defense Department officials spoke to the Senate Armed Services Committee on May 6 in a last-ditch attempt to get the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to change its mind. They argue the risks to disruption of GPS signals used for everything from banking transactions to driving directions to pinpointing the location of 911 callers-not to mention military uses-is too great to consider the Ligado plan. They say relatively weak GPS signals could easily be disrupted.