NextNav’s callous radio spectrum-grab to privatize 900 MHz
The 900 MHz band, a frequency range serving as a commons for all, is now at risk due to NextNav’s brazen attempt to privatize this shared resource.
Left by the FCC for use by amateur radio operators, unlicensed consumer devices, and industrial, scientific, and medical equipment, this spectrum has become a hotbed for new technologies and community-driven projects. Millions of consumer devices also rely on the range, including baby monitors, cordless phones, IoT devices, garage door openers.
But NextNav looks to claim these frequencies, fence them off, and lease them out to mobile service providers.
EFF and hundreds of others have called on the FCC to decisively reject this proposal and protect the open spectrum as a commons that serves all.
NextNav’s Proposed ‘Band-Grab’
NextNav wants the FCC to reconfigure the 902-928 MHz band to grant them exclusive rights to the majority of the spectrum. The country’s airwaves are separated into different sections for different devices to communicate, like dedicated lanes on a highway. This proposal would not only give NextNav their own lane, but expanded operating region, increased broadcasting power, and more leeway for radio interference emanating from their portions of the band. All of this points to more power for NextNav at everyone else’s expense.
This land-grab is purportedly to implement a Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) network to serve as a US-specific backup of the Global Positioning System (GPS).
Dropping the “global” from GPS makes it far less useful for any alleged national security purposes, especially as it is likely susceptible to the same jamming and spoofing attacks as GPS.
NextNav itself admits there is also little commercial demand for PNT. GPS works, is free, and is widely supported by manufacturers. If Nextnav has a grand plan to implement a new and improved standard, it was left out of their FCC proposal.
What NextNav did include however is its intent to resell their exclusive bandwidth access to mobile 5G networks. This isn’t about national security or innovation; it’s about a rent-seeker monopolizing access to a public resource. If NextNav truly believes in their GPS backup vision, they should look to parts of the spectrum already allocated for 5G.
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