Recalculating: GPS, L-band and the Pentagon’s untenable position on 5G
Daniel S. Goldin
Last week, Ajit Pai, the chairman of the Federal Communication Commission, submitted the L-band Ligado spectrum proposal for approval, which, he said, will “make more efficient use of underused spectrum and promote the deployment of 5G†with “stringent conditions to prevent harmful [GPS] interference.†All five FCC commissioners voted to affirm the proposal, which was formally published in a 70-page report.
L-band is a critical piece of spectrum that will help accelerate the deployment of U.S. 5G so we can compete and ultimately win against China. The Department of Defense argues that use of the L-band (as Ligado proposes) will interfere with GPS, which is essential to our military and economy.
The FCC’s final order concludes that the testing upon which the DoD and other opponents based their GPS interference claims was invalid. L-band opponents’ interference measurement (termed 1dB C/No) is “inappropriate†and “there is no connection presented in the technical studies†that prove this measure of interference “relates to performance-based metrics†of a GPS receiver.
https://www.c4isrnet.com/opinion/2020/04/24/recalculating-gps-l-band-and-the-pentagons-untenable-position-on-5g/
