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

thehill.com

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

#191

Post by MR4D »

tamdar wrote: post #184
MR4D wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Should the Europeans ban American equipment? That's up to them and their own risk assessment. One thing I know for sure is that if they did, the US would wage an economic war so fiercely on Europe, that Nokia & Ericsson would have a tough time doing anything in the US for years to come. Further, collateral damage would include all sorts of manufacturing, which would cripple Germany. Remember the imbalance here: Eur…

You are talking about US vs EU and compare US to Germany.

True, but for a good reason. If you take out the economic engine of Germany, you’re done. They are the banking muscle of the EU, and once that goes, everything goes.

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

#192

Post by matheusmoreira »

sa46 wrote: post #156
MR4D wrote: post #12

An interesting threat vector arises here for Huawei... Ignore all the stuff about backdoors and such for a minute. I wonder if the administration fears that Huawai could simply attenuate their cell tower signals at a high wattage to disrupt all sorts of things. I never thought of that before - "5G as a weapon". Definitely a weird world. I need to start reading Judge Dredd again to start getting caught up on the futur…

You might like Ghost Fleet [1] (or [2] for more colorful review). Ghost Fleet is essentially a white paper turned into a Tom Clancy style techno-thriller on what war might look like between China and the United States. Tactics from Ghost Fleet include: - Infected microchips from Chinese suppliers used to target and destroy the US Pacific fleet. - Disabling GPS with anti-satellite missiles. - Cyber attacks to disrupt…

Thanks for the recommendation.

> Infected microchips from Chinese suppliers used to target and destroy the US Pacific fleet.

Awesome, the ideas that are often posted here have somehow made their way into fiction.

> Disabling GPS with anti-satellite missiles.

Just GPS? I'd expect surveillance and communications satellites to be much higher priority targets.

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

#193

Post by sq_ »

Junk_Collector wrote: post #58
icegreentea2 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fundamentally yes, but look at how both sides are trying to sell the issue. If Ligado and the FCC are both pushing this spectrum allocation issue as a question of helping 5G or not (and therefore hitching onto the we need 5G now or else China will beat us wagon), then I'm completely sympathetic to opposing coverage piling on the counter 5G bandwagon.

The counter 5G bandwagon seems to be largely comprised of conspiracy theories, dubious health claims, and unqualified assertions that people don't want more bandwidth. Why would you poison a legitimately important topic like spectrum allocation with associations like that?

I was under the impression that there are serious non-conspiracy concerns about the impact of 5G networking on weather satellits [0]. Something along the lines of "they use a frequency in the range used by 5G in order to see water vapor".

[0] https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...

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

#194

Post by takeda »

asdff wrote: post #151
takeda wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in LA and don't have this issues with crowds disabling me from using 4G. Regarding the earthquake, yes it is common that you can't access SCEC website right after an earthquake, but this is not a problem with 4G. You can have 10 gbps over fiber and the site still won't be accessible, because the site itself is bogged down by the traffic.

Also in LA and I find 4G is not very reliable. Who is your carrier? I use verizon. Speeds are bad and my connection drops all the time. I'm by ktown so maybe it's the density at play compared to other areas.

T-Mobile. Was a Verizon user until 2011 or 12. Actually when I switched T-Mobile felt like an upgrade in LA (especially it worked inside buildings that Verizon didn't), it was not great in rural areas but never had problems in LA.

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

#195

Post by tony101 »

sq_ wrote: post #193
Junk_Collector wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The counter 5G bandwagon seems to be largely comprised of conspiracy theories, dubious health claims, and unqualified assertions that people don't want more bandwidth. Why would you poison a legitimately important topic like spectrum allocation with associations like that?

I was under the impression that there are serious non-conspiracy concerns about the impact of 5G networking on weather satellits [0]. Something along the lines of "they use a frequency in the range used by 5G in order to see water vapor". [0] https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a...

Yes. Another source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03609-x

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

#197

Post by stainforth »

kelnos wrote: post #188
mcguire wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that 5G is specifically designed to improve that situation, at the expense of things like range and building penetration.

The only way this works is if carriers invest in a ton more hardware, which means leasing more tower space, creating new tower space, getting creative with placing radios in areas where you can't really put towers, etc. That's expensive. What's also expensive -- sometimes even more expensive -- is running wiring to all those places to connect those radios to the backhaul network. I frankly do not expect US carriers t…

I thought in this system we have, companies did what consumers wanted?

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

#198

Post by andromeduck »

joecool1029 wrote: post #186
andromeduck wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't we just greatly improve the signal strength at source by an order of magnitude? Like I know the new satellites can use beam forming to increase power for some large area for military use but it looks like even so total power is about ~500W right now. What's stopping us from deploying 10KW sats?

> Like I know the new satellites can use beam forming to increase power for some large area for military use No, what you think you 'know' is plain wrong. Usually when discussing satellites, we're talking about a directional antenna that focuses a spot or wide beam for broadcast. A spot beam allows you to target a particular region, DirecTV uses spot beams to provide local broadcasts to general regions of the US. The…

Thanks that's actually helpful. I did some more reading and it looks like it is as you say, the new military transmitters are directional and steerable, beam forming done on the receiving side.

But still it seems that power is still part of the solution given the increased power density of the new military antennas. I guess what I'm wondering is why they can't just reserve more band, move to regional antennas for whatever other technologies in addition to fighting polluters/jammers/spoofers and noisy neighbors. Or is that the plan?

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

#199

Post by niftich »

See document FCC-20-48 [1] for full text. Some quotes:

"Our decision authorizes Ligado to deploy a low-power terrestrial nationwide network in the 1526-1536 MHz, 1627.5-1637.5 MHz, and 1646.5-1656.5 MHz band (...)"

"Our action provides regulatory certainty to Ligado, ensures adjacent band operations, including Global Positioning System (GPS), are sufficiently protected from harmful interference (...)"

"Ligado's amended license modification applications significantly reduce the power levels of its operations from its earlier proposals and commit Ligado to providing a significant guard-band in the MSS spectrum to further separate its terrestrial transmissions from neighboring operations in the Radionavigation-Satellite Service (RNSS) allocation. Based on the extensive record, we conclude that Ligado's latest proposal—combined with the stringent conditions we adopt today—addresses harmful interference concerns with respect to GPS operating in the adjacent RNSS allocation, as well as concerns with respect to MSS licensees' operations in the L-band."

Read section "II. Background" for more technical info and changes since the LightSquared proposals.

[1] (PDF) https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-20-48A1.pdf

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

#200

Post by nateberkopec »

sa46 wrote: post #156
MR4D wrote: post #12

An interesting threat vector arises here for Huawei... Ignore all the stuff about backdoors and such for a minute. I wonder if the administration fears that Huawai could simply attenuate their cell tower signals at a high wattage to disrupt all sorts of things. I never thought of that before - "5G as a weapon". Definitely a weird world. I need to start reading Judge Dredd again to start getting caught up on the futur…

You might like Ghost Fleet [1] (or [2] for more colorful review). Ghost Fleet is essentially a white paper turned into a Tom Clancy style techno-thriller on what war might look like between China and the United States. Tactics from Ghost Fleet include: - Infected microchips from Chinese suppliers used to target and destroy the US Pacific fleet. - Disabling GPS with anti-satellite missiles. - Cyber attacks to disrupt…

Oh nice. Ghost Fleet looks like the 2015 version of Red Storm Rising.
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