NAB Restructures Staff to Prioritize BPS
NAB is shifting its staff to prioritize the development and deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS), an ATSC 3.0-based U.S. backup for GPS that's seen by broadcasters as an important justification for shifting U.S. consumers to 3.0. “By investing more resources in BPS, we are accelerating a technology that strengthens national resilience while creating meaningful long-term opportunities for our members,” said NAB CEO Curtis LeGeyt in a release Tuesday.
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Under the realignment, current Chief Technology Officer Sam Matheny and Vice President of Advanced Technology Tariq Mondal will focus “solely on advancing BPS technology,” the release said. Matheny will serve as executive vice president of BPS and Mondal as vice president of BPS. Matheny will no longer serve as CTO.
NAB is also launching a new industry affairs and innovation department, which will “align member services, innovation, engineering and technology expertise to better address the challenges and opportunities facing broadcasters at the intersection of business and technology,” the release said. That department will be led by Executive Vice President April Carty-Sipp. In addition, Senior Vice President of Emerging Technology John Clark will add the new title of chief innovation officer, taking on some of the duties previously held by Matheny.
In a Dec. 4 letter to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, Rep. Russ Fulcher, R-Idaho, urged the FCC to issue an NPRM on technologies to back up GPS. "The FCC has heard from various companies that they have new terrestrial-based technologies and systems they believe could help provide better [position, navigation and timing] and serve as a system-of-systems back up to GPS," Fulcher wrote. "I encourage you to move forward from the [notice of inquiry] effort to an NPRM that will allow America's great innovators to prove their technologies, work out potential interference issues and give the country the backup President [Donald] Trump realized was necessary years ago."