What We Believe
The Resilient Navigation and Timing (RNT) Foundation’s advocacy, education, and outreach efforts flow from a shared understanding of the PNT landscape — where the vulnerabilities are, what the solutions look like, and what role government must play.
Our Core Beliefs
The Problem
PNT is essential — and its loss would be catastrophic.
Ensuring accurate and reliable access to PNT services is foundational to the smooth operation of diverse national infrastructure elements including but not limited to: aviation, transportation, telecommunications, energy production, construction, and finance. A large-scale outage, even for a short period, would have disastrous security, safety, and economic consequences.
GPS/GNSS are invaluable and must be protected.
GPS and other GNSS have huge user cohorts and will remain core systems. Other PNT technologies will supplement and protect them by deterring malicious interference.
GNSS alone is not enough.
GNSS signals are vulnerable to a wide range of threats. They cannot, by themselves, support essential security and economic functions.
The Solution
Nations need widely available, non-GNSS PNT.
Accessible, non-GNSS PNT services:
- Protect users during GNSS outages
- Reduce incentives for malicious interference
- Make GNSS safer and more reliable overall
Every nation should have at least one sovereign PNT source to complement and backup GNSS.
PNT is essential to most all technologies. Ensuring PNT continuity is key to national and economic security. “Sovereign PNT” can be provided by a government or by another entity over which the government can exercise control.
A resilient national PNT architecture is achievable today.
A minimal core architecture integrates:
- Space-based signals
- Terrestrial broadcast PNT
- Fiber-based timing
The U.S. Department of Transportation affirmed this system-of-systems approach in its Complementary PNT and GPS Backup Technologies Demonstration Report (January 2021, p. 195). We refer to these three sources collectively as the Resilient PNT Triad.
The Responsibility
Many nations are already implementing the triad.
Countries that have or are deploying resilient PNT triads include: the United Kingdom, France, Republic of Korea, China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.
Government leaders have a responsibility to ensure their nation has a resilient PNT architecture.
Such systems are essential for both national and economic security. There is no stand-alone commercial business case for providing every citizen unfettered access to a minimal alternative PNT “safety net” that supports security and economic continuity in the event of a major disruption to GNSS. Government leadership is required.
The Path Forward
The case for action has been made. The studies have been done, the technologies exist, and the path forward is clear. Here is what needs to happen next.
Governments must lead.
Ensuring resilient PNT capabilities is a government responsibility — essential to both national and economic security. This can be achieved in many ways, including through provision of services, establishing requirements, and empowering non-governmental entities.
The technology is ready.
Mature technologies for resilient PNT are already available as products and services. There is no need to wait.
Implementation can happen quickly.
National systems can be stood up faster than many assume. The path forward does not require years of study or major government system acquisitions.
Long-term commercial contracts offer the best path to scale.
Competitive, multi-year service contracts allow governments to deploy resilient architectures efficiently and at scale — delivering the best value for the public dollar.
The RNT Foundation Stands Ready to Help.
As a public benefit charity charged with lessening the burdens on government, we are available to assist policymakers, agencies, and legislators working to advance resilient PNT.