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Communications Wireless Networking Government Network The Military United States

FCC To Approve 5G Network Despite Military Saying It Will Harm GPS (arstechnica.com) 56

Posted by BeauHD from the red-light-green-light dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The Federal Communications Commission is set to approve a new 5G cellular network despite claims from the Department of Defense that it will interfere with Global Positioning System (GPS) services. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai today asked fellow commissioners to approve an "application to deploy a low-power terrestrial nationwide network in the L-Band that would primarily support 5G and Internet of Things services." The application is from Ligado, formerly known as LightSquared, which for nearly a decade has sought permission to build a wireless network using frequencies near those used for GPS. A previous failure to obtain FCC approval helped push LightSquared into bankruptcy.

The FCC said its draft order would "ensure that adjacent band operations, including GPS, are protected from harmful interference." Pai said the FCC has "compiled an extensive record, which confirms that it is in the public interest to grant Ligado's application while imposing stringent conditions to prevent harmful interference." He continued: "Although I appreciate the concerns that have been raised by certain Executive Branch agencies, it is the Commission's duty to make an independent determination based on sound engineering. And based on the painstaking technical analysis done by our expert staff, I am convinced that the conditions outlined in this draft order would permit Ligado to move forward without causing harmful interference. For example, the draft order would authorize downlink operations at a power level that represents a greater than 99 percent reduction from what Ligado proposed in its 2015 application." The base-station power reduction is "from 32dBW to 9.8dBW," and Ligado committed to a 23MHz "guard-band using its own licensed spectrum to further separate its terrestrial base station transmissions from neighboring operation," the FCC said. "As such, Ligado is now only seeking terrestrial use of the 1526-1536MHz, 1627.5-1637.5MHz, and 1646.5-1656.5MHz bands."

Ligado isn't competing directly against the big telecom giants. Instead, the company "plans to deliver custom private networks for industrial firms, service for [IoT] devices and unmanned systems, and connectivity for other business and government use cases," reports Ars. "Ligado could also supply capacity to the major wireless carriers."
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FCC To Approve 5G Network Despite Military Saying It Will Harm GPS More

FCC To Approve 5G Network Despite Military Saying It Will Harm GPS

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  • This must not go ahead. 5G is a deadly scourge on humanity!

  • so the military gave a way a vulnerability to most of our advance weapons. not good.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 )
      or DID they.......hmmmm
    • Not really a secret given that billions of people on this planet hold a device that reads same satellites.
    • No, the vulnerability has been known since the system was installed: if you induce interference on the radio frequencies GPS uses, the receiver can have trouble getting data from the satellites. This has been a known problem folks have been working to exploit and mitigate since the invention of radio communication in general...

      All the military did was ask these folks not work so closely to their frequencies, as to not accidentally trigger the "vulnerability". They have similar restrictions on transmit p

      • The UK has a restriction in the ham 70cm band for 'no reason.' Ofcom won't say why. The spectrum isn't allocated to anyone else. There's no reason. Just an instruction, on which they are very strict, to keep out of 431-432MHz.

        The outright refusal to give any reason for this makes it obvious to everyone that there is some military utilization in that space which the government will not officially admit exists. I'd guess either radar or emergency communications. Probably the latter, as they don't seem to actu

        • The UK has a restriction in the ham 70cm band for 'no reason.' Ofcom won't say why. The spectrum isn't allocated to anyone else. There's no reason. Just an instruction, on which they are very strict, to keep out of 431-432MHz.

          Ofcom does not show that band as restricted.
          http://static.ofcom.org.uk/sta... [ofcom.org.uk]

          Is it secretly restricted?

          • It's secretly restricted, yes - the mysterious other user does not show on any of the official frequency allocations. Which is why everyone in ham radio knows it has to be military. It's Britain's worst-kept secret since the BT Tower.

            If you check the RSGB page though, https://rsgb.org/main/operatin... [rsgb.org]
            "Location Restriction: In addition it is very important to note that the band between 431-432MHz is not available for use if you are located anywhere within a 100km radius centered near Charing Cross, London. "

    • so the military gave a way a vulnerability to most of our advance weapons. not good.

      LOL.. Like it's a huge secret. Not to mention that the weapons you are thinking about are already able to deal with this problem fairly effectively. They have better receivers with better side band filters to avoid adjacent channel interference, plus, they have directional antennas to avoid hearing stuff setting on the ground trying to mess with them.

      The jamming of GPS is remarkably easy for commercial consumer grade products. These receivers are not built very well, they are cheap, have no external shie

    • so the military gave a way a vulnerability to most of our advance weapons. not good.

      You think your cellphone tower will be a problem to things flying at 60,000 feet?

    • GPS satellites orbit at an altitude of about 20200 km. The signals are not highly directional with a shaped antenna like point-to-point satellite communications. By necessity they have to omnidirectional, so they fall over the entire globe. (Satellite TV and radio have the same constraint.)

      The typical cell phone tower spacing is about 2-3 km in urban areas. So just by attenuation with distance, the tower's signals will be about 65 million times more powerful (about 78 dB). There's no way to avoid th

    • I don't think GPS frequencies were really all that unknown.

  • 5g is a giant PITA to create what is essentially metered urban wifi. Why should you be able to get free wifi at the coffee shop when instead it could be dripped out to you from a metered cell tower?

    • Re:Replacing free wifi with 5g parking meters (Score:5, Interesting)

      by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Friday April 17, 2020 @08:56AM (#59958022)

      5G is to handle the 20 **BILLION** IoT devices that will be deployed by the end of this year, and that number is just going to grow. I'm not talking about your connected refrigerator, but things like smart street lights, sewer flow monitors, fish counters, field moisture sensors, and the big one, factory automation. That they can sell consumers new phones is a relatively minor plus for the cell companies, they're preparing to handle the huge flood of traffic.

      • Factory automation is done in factories which are enclosed spaces. The communicatins networks do not rely on IOT communications. Factories don't need 5G connectivity at their locations. They need very little global connectivity.

        The real killer app for 5G is increased and faster telemetry and surveillence. In high density urban areas things aren't being seen that powers that be consider important. And the store has difficulty beaming directed advertising , etc.

        The hucksters will tell you higher speed connect

        • The communicatins networks do not rely on IOT communications. Factories don't need 5G connectivity at their locations. They need very little global connectivity.

          Hi, factory engineer here. No we're not focusing on inhouse gear, we and many of our vendors are already pushing 5G as the primary means of providing external connectivity for sensor. Yes you read that right, external connectivity. It's one thing to be a giant refinery with on staff reliability and optimisation engineers, but "factories" or smaller plants don't have those resources.

          Vendors are heavily pushing process optimisiation as a service. The idea being not that you measure pressure and temperatures i

      • I mean, I suppose if the brought home groceries they'd need somewhere to put them, but without pockets how do they buy them? So many questions.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          I know you're making a funny, but various kinds of fish counters are real things. Biologists count fish running up the river to spawn, salmon farms need to maintain populations of fish in pens at certain levels, processing plants need to know how many units are coming down the conveyor, there are others.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by dissy ( 172727 )

          I mean, I suppose if the brought home groceries they'd need somewhere to put them, but without pockets how do they buy them?

          I need the fish to leave the groceries on the counter because if they left them on the floor the dog would get into them.

          As for pockets, no no you have it all wrong. These days we attach little tiny horse carts to the back of the fish.
          Pockets interfere with the fishes aero-fluid-dynamics, and by the time they get home the ice cream they put on the counter has already melted and made a mess.

      • 5G is to handle the 20 **BILLION** IoT devices that will be deployed by the end of this year, and that number is just going to grow. I'm not talking about your connected refrigerator, but things like smart street lights, sewer flow monitors, fish counters, field moisture sensors, and the big one, factory automation. That they can sell consumers new phones is a relatively minor plus for the cell companies, they're preparing to handle the huge flood of traffic.

        These are just marketing slogans completely divorced from reality.

        We've heard all of this bullshit 20 years ago. Remember the "sensor network" craze? Trillions of shit things on the planet having an IPv6 address? It's what SLAAC was intended for.

        The bottom line has always been that everything there was any real value in connecting has already been connected long ago. Whether by wire or licensed RF or 2/3/4G cellular... It's already been done.

        There is nothing at all transformative that will be enabled by

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          everything there was any real value in connecting has already been connected long ago

          Interesting that you have so much confidence in an opinion that is so completely wrong. Just look at what John Deere is doing with them.
          https://spectrum.ieee.org/view... [ieee.org]

          • Interesting that you have so much confidence in an opinion that is so completely wrong.

            The reality is 5G is over hyped nonsense.

            Just look at what John Deere is doing with them.

            The killer app for 5G is....drumroll....tractors... I bet all the major carriers are lining up to deploy 5G in BFE.

            Let me know when that happens... In the mean time you really just did call me "completely wrong" by citing an article about existing technology deployed in the field today that really is NOT using 5G.

            Honestly I can't think of a more ridiculous use of 5G. High cost, low density environment. An extremely poor fit. The two things that make 5G are higher

  • A seat on the corporate board? (Score:3)

    by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Friday April 17, 2020 @08:59AM (#59958030)

    I guess LightSquared finally offered Ajit Pai a seat on their board and some stock options when he finally ends his stint of "public service". Here I thought Colin Powell's brat was bad, that they've managed to find someone even worse probably shouldn't surprise me but it still does.

  • 5G (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday April 17, 2020 @09:18AM (#59958074) Journal

    I know we're all supposed to hate the FCC, but I agree with them on this as a matter of practicality.

    5G is coming, and if something like that *can* mess with GPS...well, then the military should be addressing that, not "hoping" someone will legislatively protect their systems.

    • 5G is coming, and if something like that *can* mess with GPS...well, then the military should be addressing that,

      Even from the summary it seems like the headline is misleading, because the original application was adjusted to accommodate military concerns... the actual application approved has lower power caps and adjusted bandwidth to remain further from interfering with GPS. So it seems like the military concerns are already addressed.

      • It all depends who writes the headlines. "FCC backs down on 5G for consumers, bowing to military desires. Greedy contractors see profits..."

    • Re:5G (Score:4, Interesting)

      by caseih ( 160668 ) on Friday April 17, 2020 @09:44AM (#59958156)

      The thing is that GPS was expected to move off some of these contested bands entirely by next year as the newer revision satellites came online to support L5 bands. However, this rollout has been delayed several times, and now is hoped to be complete by 2027. In the meantime there will be a time period where GPS is vulnerable to 5G interference.

      https://www.gps.gov/technical/... [gps.gov]

      I don't think the military will be impacted by this interference near as much as civilian GPS receivers could be. 5G transmitters are super low-powered and need to be deployed in a mesh to be of any use. In other words, primarily an urban environment. Out at sea or in the air would see no impact. Operations in certain areas like Afghanistan would also likely have little impact.

      The military is just sore that the FCC sold the spectrum out from under them. The whole thing is a bit of a shady deal in my opinion, as are most spectrum auctions.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by theCoder ( 23772 )

      But why is 5G coming? Most of the time I barely get 4G (I'm not in a big city, but I'm hardly in the rural backwater either). And from what I hear, and this could be wrong, but 5G has a much shorter range than 4G, which means more towers. If the carriers cannot put up enough towers for 4G, what chance is there that there will be enough for 5G? Maybe in the super dense urban areas, but not in the more suburban or rural areas.

      So personally, I'd rather the carriers finish rolling out 4G before they start 5

  • For wide area IoT data collection LoRaWAN can do 2-3 km in urban areas and 5-7km in rural. If you drop the data rate you can get up to 15km range.

    It also operates on existing open/free frequencies.

  • No supprise. (Score:3)

    by bobs666 ( 146801 ) on Friday April 17, 2020 @09:43AM (#59958154)
    Mobile carriers own the FCC. Proof of this is simply that we do not have bandwidth for a roof top grid of routers that would eliminate most of the need for cellphone traffic to be a pay commodity.

    • It's more complicated than that. What you propose would need more than bandwidth - though I do agree that the license-free spectrum has been of tremendous benefit to the public, and it would be we a good idea to consider opening up a bit more. Such a proposal would have to be discussed through the ITU though, so that every member country can match - you don't want to end up a situation where hardware for the American market is criminal to own in Europe, or vice versa.

      Your rooftop grid of routers idea also h

  • Really? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nospam007 ( 722110 ) *

    Isn't the military operating in shit-hole countries that won't have 5G for decades?
    Or are their soldiers unable to find their base at home without it?

    • Hell, there are places in the states that won't get 5G for decades. Hell, the telecoms haven't finished the 4G rollout, yet.

  • 32dBW is 1.5KW. That's... ridiculous. Are they planning to reach mobile phones on the moon? You could do it with that kind of power.
    9.8dBW is 9.5W. Much saner.

    The only reason I could imagine even asking for a 1.5KW base station license is so you can sacrifice it in later negotiations. Which is exactly what happened.

  • Trump administration has proven time and again that they are not to be trusted. Who are the investors in Ligado/LightSquared? How much are the Donald and Jared being paid for this approval?

  • This sounds like a peer to peer transport standard which would help increase communication between mobile devices and IoT. Basically allowing them to locate and identify rogue devices.

    Conditon 1) I see a device not transmitting via 1.2ghz, it must be a rogue device in grid
    Condition 2) I see a device transmitting via 1.2ghz, thanks for the location dats bro

  • I would rather have good weather reports and GPS, rather than 5G.
  • Not sure why the power is being obfuscated by being presented in dBw rather than watts - maybe because it sounds (to non-electronics folk) like a bigger reduction than it is? 32 dBw = 15.1 W / 9.8 dBw = 9.9 W - therefore still more than 1/2 the power. By the way, 9.9 watts is a lot - a CB radio is limited to 4 watts.

    • It should be in Libraries of Congress, Olympic Swimming Pools, or Smoots.

      But yeah, if you write for Americans, you shouldn't use terms that require math. Case in point: 32 dBW = 1585 watts.

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