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What’s new: A piece by Avi Rosenthal from the Z-Wave Alliance discussing the need to both backup GPS and not displace well-established users from their spectrum.
Why it’s important: NextNav has a petition pending before the FCC asking for about $5B worth of spectrum for free and promising in exchange to establish a terrestrial PNT system for the U.S. Members of the Z-Wave Alliance would be severely impacted.
What else to know:
- The Z-Wave Alliance represents users of the spectrum NextNav wants and (along with many others) has advocated against approval of the petition.
- NextNav agents have falsely asserted in the press that the Z-Wave Alliance represents Chinese companies trying to undermine America.
- GPS World recently held a webinar featuring NextNav and its proponents. The below piece is a rebuttal to that webinar.
- The RNT Foundation strives to stay technology neutral. As a public benefit educational non-profit we have spoken out about specific technologies when it is clear false and misleading information has been submitted to government.
- Our high level message to the FCC and other government agencies is that America’s Resilient PNT Architecture should be established by contracting with providers through fair and open competition.
The U.S. needs GPS backup and IoT resilience
America’s dependence on GPS is a matter of national security, economic vitality, and daily life. We all agree: the United States must develop strong, resilient alternatives to satellite-based positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). The question, ironically enough, is how to get where we want to go.
Z-Wave Alliance, whose members build the smart home, security, and automation devices used in millions of homes and buildings, fully supports the federal effort to harden PNT infrastructure. We have been active contributors to the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry (WT 25-110) and the Department of Transportation’s Complementary PNT (CPNT) research program. We have provided and assessed technical data to help identify which terrestrial and space-based solutions can truly coexist with the technologies Americans already use every day.