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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

#11

Post by neltnerb »

briandear wrote: post #4

This is being framed as a military issue, but the reality is that this would cause havoc with aviation as well, especially precision GPS approaches. Reminds me of a similar issue from 2012: https://www.gps.gov/news/2012/02/lightsquared/

I'm a little worried that GPS is so vulnerable that these satellites could cause such disruption to be honest. This is satellite based, any country could be approving this plan and the impact on GPS would still be present since orbits go everywhere.

I guess I'd rather they just... not... I don't really even think the trade-off in increased seemingly real health risk is worth making the cell network even faster.

It's going to happen though, if there's no mitigation that makes GPS more invulnerable to interference it will inevitably fail when actually needed.

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

#12

Post by MR4D »

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 future.

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

#13

Post by syshum »

kryogen1c wrote: post #6

I don't understand this. Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? My understanding of GPS was that it is used in _civilization critical_ applications like satellite synchronization and plane/ship navigation. How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

>>Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation?

That is complex, but most likely no. Like the FAA they largely respect the civilian agencies but ultimately they exist outside of that civilian regulation

>>Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)?

Yes the military GPS is different from the Civilian GPS, the US DOD has the ability in a time of war to cut off Civilian access to the GPS Network where only US military (and approved Allies) receivers will work. This is one (of many) reasons the EU, Russia and China all have their own GPS systems

>>How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

While I do not know if I agree (have not read enough on the interference to form a definitive opinion) the supporters of the new network claim there will not be any meaningful interference, that the DoD is over reacting and if there is Interference they will be required to replace the equipment..

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

#14

Post by souterrain »

kryogen1c wrote: post #6

I don't understand this. Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? My understanding of GPS was that it is used in _civilization critical_ applications like satellite synchronization and plane/ship navigation. How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

The FCC does not have regulatory authority over DoD.

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

#15

Post by brenden2 »

It's in the military's interest to limit the freedom and empowerment of the public as much as possible. I would take their opinions with a grain of salt.

With that said, this seems like something that can be easily solved with technology improvements.

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

#16

Post by dbcurtis »

syshum wrote: post #13
kryogen1c wrote: post #6

I don't understand this. Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? My understanding of GPS was that it is used in _civilization critical_ applications like satellite synchronization and plane/ship navigation. How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

>>Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? That is complex, but most likely no. Like the FAA they largely respect the civilian agencies but ultimately they exist outside of that civilian regulation >>Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? Yes the military GPS is different from the Civilian GPS, the US DOD has the ability in a time of war to cut off Civilian access to…

> >Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation?

> That is complex, but most likely no. Like the FAA they largely respect the civilian agencies but ultimately they exist outside of that civilian regulation

Indeed, the DOD can do pretty much what they like regardless of what the FCC says. Of course, it all works better if everybody stays in their own sandbox, so the DOD does, by-and-large.

In general, government frequency allocations and usage are coordinated by the NTIA Office of Spectrum Management. But here again, the NTIA OSM negotiates with the DOD, they can't enforce anything on the DOD.

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

#17

Post by Negitivefrags »

Is this even actually directly related to 5G? I mean a mobile phone can’t connect directly to space satellite right?

The article says “Would allow telecom companies to deploy 5G networks”. Is this satellite network for doing connnections between cell sites maybe?

If that’s the case, it feels like 5G is only tangentially related and only included in story for click bait given that people seem to want to get mad about 5G recently.

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

#18

Post by souterrain »

brenden2 wrote: post #15

It's in the military's interest to limit the freedom and empowerment of the public as much as possible. I would take their opinions with a grain of salt. With that said, this seems like something that can be easily solved with technology improvements.

Excepting in this case where the military operates a critical, life-safety infrastructure used by civilians.

I'm frankly more concerned with the FCC acting as a taxpayer-funded telecoms industry cheerleader.

Dear FCC: You're regulators. You're supposed to be regulating. This is what you get for being public servants.

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

#19

Post by stronglikedan »

syshum wrote: post #13
kryogen1c wrote: post #6

I don't understand this. Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? My understanding of GPS was that it is used in _civilization critical_ applications like satellite synchronization and plane/ship navigation. How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

>>Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? That is complex, but most likely no. Like the FAA they largely respect the civilian agencies but ultimately they exist outside of that civilian regulation >>Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? Yes the military GPS is different from the Civilian GPS, the US DOD has the ability in a time of war to cut off Civilian access to…

> the military GPS is different from the Civilian GPS

I remember reading at some point that the civilian GPS was randomly offset so as not to give extremely accurate coordinates like the military GPS does. I thought that was interesting, if true.

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

#20

Post by centimeter »

kryogen1c wrote: post #6

I don't understand this. Is the DoD not subject to FCC regulation? Are there multiple bands that different types of GPS signals use (civilian vs military)? My understanding of GPS was that it is used in _civilization critical_ applications like satellite synchronization and plane/ship navigation. How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic?

For many years the government intentionally degraded the quality of GPS signals available to civilians. Look up "Selective Availability" - it was stopped in 2000, at which point consumer GPS became viable.
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