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What’s new: NextNav has come out with another document purporting to support that its terrestrial PNT scheme could work and that the FCC should give it lots of expensive spectrum for free to underwrite the effort.
Why it’s important:
- There are now two petitions before the FCC that support terrestrial PNT.
- We think NextNav’s proposal is deeply flawed from a fairness, engineering, business, and public policy points of view.
- The National Assn of Broadcasters, by contrast, offers a low/no cost service as part of modernized television signals.
- We are not sure how much PNT technical expertise the FCC has in house. For example, we are still concerned that the order on Ligado stands, and that eight Petitions for Reconsideration (one of which was ours) filed in 2020 have yet to be answered yes or no.
What else to know:
- NextNav seems to have an endless capacity to generate tech-seeming papers to influence the FCC.
- After the FCC’s decision to allow Ligado to operate, Congress required a National Academy of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) study to help resolve conflicting technical reports.
- We have been reliably informed that granting the NextNav petition could create lots of interference for existing users in and around the impacted spectrum.
Our suggestion:
If the commission is leaning in NextNav’s favor, it is probably time to engage NASEM for an independent and objective analysis. Better to have that info before rather than after.
