Groups Slam NextNav 900 MHz PNT Proposal
The FCC should reject NextNav’s petition on reconfiguring the lower 900 MHz band for 5G-based 3D positioning, navigation and timing operations, said numerous trade groups in filings last week (docket 24-240).
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WISPA, the Connected Devices for America Coalition and others said NextNav’s technical studies were inaccurate and that opposition to the proposal is widespread. “In light of the overwhelming opposition to the NextNav petition in the FCC record, and the flaws in its technical and economic analyses,” the FCC “should deny the NextNav petition and reject its call for the agency to issue an NPRM on its proposal,” said the E-ZPass Group and the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association in a joint filing. NextNav has defended its submissions to the FCC (see 2511250051) and kicked off a trial of its proposed 5G-based PNT system last week (see 2512110060).
"We stand by our engineering and believe the appropriate venue to resolve any remaining technical questions is through a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking," said NextNav Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Renee Gregory in an emailed statement. "With swift action, the FCC has an opportunity to advance a near-term terrestrial complement and backup to GPS that can be available during this Administration, at no cost to taxpayers."
NextNav’s proposals would lead to harmful interference to part 5 operations, said the Connected Devices for America Coalition. “An outdoor unlicensed device using a 200-kilohertz bandwidth in the Lower 900 MHz Band would need a signal to be at least 538 times greater in order to overcome interference from the NextNav network,” the coalition filing said. The possibility of interference “calls into question NextNav’s ability to deliver reliable PNT but also casts doubt on the financial viability of NextNav’s future business plans,” the filings said. If 5G mobile service providers can’t tolerate the interference to their mobile broadband customers, it could “leave users harmed and cause severe economic and public safety damage without NextNav delivering any of the sweeping benefits it has promised.”
The FCC “does not need to grant NextNav’s Petition for 5G-based PNT to proliferate,” the coalition filing said. “The wholesale disruption of 26 megahertz of bandwidth that would result from this solution is in no way a condition precedent for 5G-based PNT. Industry is already on a path for 5G-based PNT to find a home in a different 500 kilohertz of spectrum that is not already being utilized by hundreds of millions of unlicensed devices,” the filing said.
Several groups took aim at information the company has submitted to the FCC. A NextNav study showing that its operations could coexist with electronic tolling operations included “fundamental errors in NextNav’s test methodology, multiple faulty assumptions it applied in testing, and anomalies in the data,” said a joint filing from the E-ZPass Group and the International Bridge, Tunnel & Turnpike Association. WISPA submitted a report to the FCC Monday entitled "Flaws in the NextNav Study." “Not only does it ignore the type of wider-bandwidth operation used for FWA and other broadband use cases, but it also understates the risk of crowding and congestion on what would be the remaining frequencies not used by or protected for NextNav’s use,” WISPA said.
“In many instances, NextNav conflates terms and demonstrates a lack of understanding of 5G network design and operation,” said the Security Industry Association. “The proposed NextNav network would cause devastating interference to existing unlicensed users of the Lower 900 MHz Band, leaving them unable to function.”