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

111–120 of 224 posts

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

#111

Post by Multicomp »

brenden2 wrote: post #37
michaelcampbell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What, no "sheeple"?

You're making a joke, but I find it strange that people in the US aren't more skeptical of the government, especially the military and militarized police forces. To think the US is somehow unable to become a totalitarian state is naive. In Germany people didn't think it was going to happen either, many Germans didn't believe the atrocities were even happening and some remain in denial about them today.

> I find it strange that people in the US aren't more skeptical of the government....military and militarized police forces. To think the US is somehow unable to become a totalitarian state is naive.

2nd amendment supporters and small government libertarians are both examples of groups who are suspicious of large governments.

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

#112

Post by X6S1x6Okd1st »

the-dude wrote: post #90
X6S1x6Okd1st wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That is not going to happen soon anyways.

Measured in lived experience? Maybe not, measured in large scale hardware roll outs? It's not that far away.

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

#113

Post by michaelt »

josh2600 wrote: post #46
jrockway wrote: post #38

I don't think there's enough detail here to decide whether or not to be mad. The L band is huge, 1000MHz-2000MHz. GPS uses a few tiny slices of this band. Cell phones, amateur radio, weather radar (though not precipitation-detection radar), ADS-B, and a ton of other non-military things are in that band. Adding 5G may or may not have any negative effect on GPS. I doubt they are proposing to run their 5G network on top…

When light squared was shut down for messing with gps frequencies in their satellite network, the military did not say that light^2 was actually broadcasting outside of the expected frequency band. The deal is that the military just doesn’t use filters on most of their broadcast and reception equipment so their operating frequency is actually way wider than they say publicly. This is because filters cost money and re…

> The deal is that the military just doesn’t use filters

Do you have a citation for that?

I would have thought the issue is not that GPS receivers don't use filters, but rather than no filter has a perfectly sharp cut-off and GPS signals are exceptionally faint.

For example, if the GPS signal is 0.1 femtowatts at 1575MHz, even if you've got a filter that can remove 99.99999% of a noise signal at 1600MHz you can still overwhelm the GPS signal with 1 nanowatt of power.

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

#114

Post by Retric »

nxc18 wrote: post #92
antsar wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So I can use my mapping application when I’m in the park. So I can look up an earthquake that just happened when I’m in the lobby of a movie theater (that really happened, and the 4G network really is not capable of handling any sort of crowd at least not in my area).

4G can work even in crowded convention centers. If you’re having an issue due to overcrowding, that’s a problem with your telecom not really 4G.

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

#115

Post by takeda »

nxc18 wrote: post #105
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.

In my case the site was google but yes individual sites are always at risk of going down.

So in that case I don't know what problems you have. I did not had these kind of issues. The only issues I had was that there was no cell phone signal in certain buildings, and 5G won't solve that.

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

#116

Post by wl »

josh2600 wrote: post #46
jrockway wrote: post #38

I don't think there's enough detail here to decide whether or not to be mad. The L band is huge, 1000MHz-2000MHz. GPS uses a few tiny slices of this band. Cell phones, amateur radio, weather radar (though not precipitation-detection radar), ADS-B, and a ton of other non-military things are in that band. Adding 5G may or may not have any negative effect on GPS. I doubt they are proposing to run their 5G network on top…

When light squared was shut down for messing with gps frequencies in their satellite network, the military did not say that light^2 was actually broadcasting outside of the expected frequency band. The deal is that the military just doesn’t use filters on most of their broadcast and reception equipment so their operating frequency is actually way wider than they say publicly. This is because filters cost money and re…

That's not accurate.

Every GPS receiver in existence uses filtering. The question is, how sharp does that filter have to be? The GPS frequencies were chosen to be away from frequencies used by transmitters that might be near GPS receivers. Lightsquared proposed repurposing satellite downlink frequencies (which they bought at a discount because this restriction limited their use) for the purposes of terrestrial networking, breaking that assumption. In order to maintain similar functionality, GPS receivers would require significantly sharper filters, increasing bulk, cost, and complexity.

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

#117

Post by ohazi »

filleduchaos wrote: post #82
_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

5g uses more power, not less.

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

#118

Post by WillPostForFood »

inetknght wrote: post #10
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?

> How could any sane human approve an interference with this traffic? I think your assumption that people in charge at the top of the United States are sane isn't a valid assumption.

FWIW, it was a unanimous 5-0 vote by the FCC. There is probably a sane a rationale for approval, even if one disagrees with it.

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

#119

Post by marcosdumay »

sasasassy wrote: post #91
neltnerb wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Let me just point out that satellites don't necessarily orbit around the world. They can be geostationary, and in fact they usually are I think. That is why you will find most US GPS satellites over the US, most Russian satellites over Russia, etc. Also, signal disruption is already very common as a necessary precaution at sensitive times and places. I think many military bases and other sensitive places, like the Kr…

GPS satellites are not on geostationary orbits[1]. And if you are using "GPS" as a common name, I still doubt you'll find any.

Geostationary orbits are very far away, what leads to horrible timing properties, and all in a single plane. They are almost useless for positioning.

1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System#Spac...

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

#120

Post by dtech »

wl wrote: post #116
josh2600 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When light squared was shut down for messing with gps frequencies in their satellite network, the military did not say that light^2 was actually broadcasting outside of the expected frequency band. The deal is that the military just doesn’t use filters on most of their broadcast and reception equipment so their operating frequency is actually way wider than they say publicly. This is because filters cost money and re…

That's not accurate. Every GPS receiver in existence uses filtering. The question is, how sharp does that filter have to be? The GPS frequencies were chosen to be away from frequencies used by transmitters that might be near GPS receivers. Lightsquared proposed repurposing satellite downlink frequencies (which they bought at a discount because this restriction limited their use) for the purposes of terrestrial networ…

Thanks, this comment clearly explained why there even is an issue
Post reply on HN