Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

thehill.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 224 posts

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#81

Post by _bxg1 »

oblio wrote: post #75
_bxg1 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except: - It's shorter-range, so coverage will be spotty for a long time - It doesn't go through buildings , so even the urban centers most likely to get the first towers will have spotty coverage - It will require buying a new device, which OEMs love but the average person won't - That device will take a hit in battery life And all of this for ludicrously-fast new speeds on mobile devices that we'll use for... what…

There are 2 kinds of 5G, millimeter wave and non millimeter wave. The one you are talking about is millimeter wave 5G. The other one has pretty long range, goes through building, doesn't use up that much more battery and is overall a better technology (higher bandwidth, better congestion control and overall capacity for more connections in a crowded area, lower latency, etc.).

A sibling comment says the non-mmWave one uses the same bands as 4G, which would suggest it's not the version the OP is talking about

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#82

Post by filleduchaos »

_bxg1 wrote: post #45

I have yet to hear anyone who's not a telecom CEO or a politician say they actually want 5G

I mean, I don't go around saying I want a more power-efficient washing machine but I'd obviously pick one up if it was available

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#83

Post by [deleted] »

_bxg1 wrote: post #70
novaRom wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It will require buying a new device all new modern phone models have 5g, what's the problem? Huawei, Xiaomi I have great experience with 5g, it's way more faster than LTE

Only Samsung's very latest flagship release has a 5G antenna, and Apple hasn't even announced a 5G phone yet. Even if it had, the average person keeps their phone for several years, so almost nobody has a 5G device in their pocket right now.

[deleted]

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#84

Post by trasz »

reubenmorais wrote: post #29
tracer4201 wrote: post #21

Is it correct to say that this impacts GPS not only for the American civilian and military but also the rest of the world? What are other country’s thoughts? It would be interesting to learn what led the FCC to make the decision they did... how did they deem the safety or consequences of this decision, etc. hopefully it’s not driven purely by profit incentives that put lives at stake. Disclaimer: I have no background…

The company wants to build a 5G network in the US, so it would affect GPS in the US. It's interference at the receiver, not at the GPS satellites themselves.

In this case there would be no problem whatsoever, since USA doesn't wage wars on the their own territory.

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#85

Post by dylan-m »

_bxg1 wrote: post #45

I have yet to hear anyone who's not a telecom CEO or a politician say they actually want 5G

It has its advantages, but it doesn't do much for consumers, except in some pretty extreme circumstances or dense areas. (Stadiums are a popular example, which, okay. I lived across the water from a stadium and my 3G phone signal sucked when there was something going on there. This got way better as my carrier got less bad and technology improved and the stadium added free wifi, but it's definitely a good problem to solve). It'll help other things more. Someone pointed out 5G could be a big thing for flying drones, in a near-future alternate universe where those are prolific, and there's quite a bit of interest in those. Trouble is a use case like that needs the infrastructure. So, everyone else is going to subsidize it by buying vastly overspecced phones, but that's the mobile industry in a nutshell.

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#86

Post by antsar »

nxc18 wrote: post #80
_bxg1 wrote: post #45

I have yet to hear anyone who's not a telecom CEO or a politician say they actually want 5G

I want 5G. There, you heard it. I’m not a telecom CEO and I’m not a politician. Edit: I want fast, reliable telecommunications everywhere I go. I want ultra fast reliable telecom in crowded cities. I want cellular that is competitive with cable internet. I want bandwidth available for IoT devices.

So you can exhaust the monthly high-speed data cap in 5 minutes instead of 5 days?

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#87

Post by nxc18 »

3pt14159 wrote: post #61
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC: In the late-2019 BBC Click interview with GCHQ on the subject of Huawei, 5G, and security the spokesperson said information security wasn't an issue as we have end-to-end to handle that, the greatest risk was remote shutdown of the network. I assumed they're alluding to "in a time of war", falling back to non-5G wouldn't seem to be a big problem ... but then lots of our comms send to run on Huawei hardware alre…

Colour me skeptical. I've seen enough to know that MITM gives you enough information or threat vectors. That said, I agree with you about Huawei and non-5G. We shouldn't be talking about banning them on 5G, we should be talking about banning them (and anyone outside of the western alliance, really) from selling gear in our countries period. National security takes precedent. China doesn't even let reporters from the…

Should the Europeans ban American equipment?

We know the NSA intercepts shipments and tampers with network equipment, on top of everything else they do. We also know a foreign agent (with considerable Chinese debt who was elected with the help of Russian intelligence) is now in the White House.

I know it’s fashionable to shit on China (China China China), but it’s not like they’re doing something new and unique. How can you count on the US, or any other country, to be a reliable partner?

The POTUS is openly inviting Russian interference in US affairs ffs.

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#88

Post by madengr »

kevindqc wrote: post #47
reubenmorais wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The company wants to build a 5G network in the US, so it would affect GPS in the US. It's interference at the receiver, not at the GPS satellites themselves.

My understanding of this is that the company wants to use L band, which is the designation for the range of frequencies in the radio spectrum from 1 to 2 gigahertz (GHz) Doesn't 5G use higher frequency than that? Is the company, a satellite company, trying to use their satellites to provide 5G or something? So if the interference starts at the satellites, it could affect other parts of the world? >“We have presented…

5G is a very broad term, which is supposed to offer 10x performance in all metrics over 4G.

This seems to be the same issue when they were called Light Squared. The L-band was to be used for terrestrial base stations with very high power transmitters. The issue is that, even though several MHz away, from the GPS carrier, the transmissions will compress the LNA on GPS receivers with poor or little filtering, desensitizing the GPS receiver.

Most civilian stuff now has decent filtering prior to the LNA so it can co-exist with all the other wireless crap crammed in your phone.

I’m an RF EE and do a lot with GPS.

Re: Pentagon official: FCC decision on 5G threatens GPS, national security

#90

Post by the-dude »

X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #79
_bxg1 wrote: post #45

I have yet to hear anyone who's not a telecom CEO or a politician say they actually want 5G

There's basically one situation in which I'd like it: when in a large crowd.

That is not going to happen soon anyways.
Post reply on HN