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What’s new: An article that discusses an interesting question. We think it gets the answer wrong.
Why it’s important:
- The questions of what fails first, which are the most important applications to fail, what will be the sequence of failures, and the like, are important from both engineering and policy perspectives.
- Complexity and interdependencies make the answers highly dependent on circumstances. Detailed accurate predictions are likely impossible.
What else to know:
- The article says first failures will be in “…precision timing that keeps wireless networks, power systems, and regulated trading clocks aligned.” Yet most instances of those application have some hold-over capability. Even if it is only for minutes.
- Transportation uses are impacted the instant GPS is not available. Uber and Lyft screech to a halt. Drones land. Location information for route planning and deliveries is not available. Drivers get disoriented or lost and accidents increase. This might be why the U.S. Department of Transportation is the lead for civil GPS and other PNT.
- We do agree that of P, N, and T – timing is “the one ring that rules them all.” And that timing is the least visible and appreciated of the three.
- The article does get a bit more nuanced as it progresses from the subhead.
