NextNav's Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz
eff.org
eff.org
What NextNav did include however is its intent to resell their exclusive bandwidth access to mobile 5G networks.
They admit nobody is calling for ground based GPS. And that can be done in lots of ways and on spectrum already allocated as the EFF says in their piece.
Fact is 5G sucks for some use cases, like indoors. And they could fall back to 4G and or do other things to improve on that.
Trying to mooch the 900Mhz spectrum away from an active public use, just to resell their shiny new resource to 5G companies looking for easy options is not in the beat public interest.
I think they are doing it this way to avoid ugly PR for already disliked wireless companies. But I could be wrong...
900Mhz is excellent and widely used too. Augmenting 5G would make whoever stole it from all of us a lot of money.
The great propagation properties are exactly why public use of 900Mhz is popular!
I say the 5G companies already have 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G spectrum and the lower frequency ones propagate better in diverse terrain anyway.
All this means 5G companies have options and there is no need to allow one company to own what is now a public resource serving the public well just as it is supposed to.
Clearly it doesn't need to be at 902-928 Mhz.
[Edit/Brainstorming]
I suggest we implement a 0.1% (time) tax on digital RF transmissions of all types, I.E. every second UTC, all Fixed Position transmitters send a 1 millisecond "National Positioning System" packet, with position and delay data with precision timing on all packetized systems using the public airwaves. We could use same system to distribute time signals.
This allows implementation of a new public service with minimal cost to all concerned, and we don't have to steal anyone's bandwidth from other services.
So, it might only be a few dozen packets/second in the worst case, for cell phone sites, etc.
As far as consumer equipment, like WiFi routers, etc... those are unlicensed, and wouldn't be part of this proposed use. (Though I suppose someone could figure out how to do it with WiFi, etc)
[1] https://howltestuffworks.blogspot.com/2019/10/5g-nr-synchron...
If you're considering commercial broadcast transmitters, there's a downside in that most markets have a central place that is ideal transmission tower location for that area. This means that each station's signal will be very close to each other making them essentially the same location. Smaller stations tend to pop up in different places than the "big boys", but they're also lower power.
It is not a big impact. But it is one and I am not entirely sure we need that crap everywhere.
We for sure don't need the kind of interruption proposed. It is a good thought with good intent, but the fact is RF use cases are not like network packets.
You're assuming based on my specific example that the tones would need to be in a range that a microphone on a device could hear. I was thinking that the extra data would be part of the broadcast signal vs the content signal where an antenna would pick it up vs a microphone. My original comment didn't really attempt to explain that though. After sleeping on it, I realize, this isn't an analog broadcast anymore so doubtful it could work with extra frequencies in the FM signal
When I compare new vs old, this comes up.
Broadcasters put data in band and have done so for what? A decade now? You mentioned out of band tracking data. I am saying there is also in band data.
Sorry to be unclear.
It is perceptually encoded to ride along with the audio and intended to be inaudible. And it largely is!
It is in band so that AD targeting can be done anywhere audio is played aloud. Say a radio station plays the old tune. It adds its signature to the audio stream which can then be picked up by someone using a tracking device at the local fair, for example.
Adding it to the tunes themselves can do the same for someone using a boom box or some speaker and give some sense of play outside streaming counts, like where exactly are those streams being heard? Your local coffee place might be a likely candidate.
I know the part about radio adding the artifacts is real and old news now. Pretty much all broadcast audio contains it.
The artifacts I hear on some remasters sound a whole lot like those I began hearing on broadcast audio. And back then, I asked and was told nicely how it all worked. Pretty clever tech actually.
I cannot always hear it. Usually, it has to be material I know well and have heard sans encoding. Or, a voice I know well from a time before encoding. It is just different enough to notice for me and some others I have talked with.
Perhaps the same tricks that are currently done to neuter civilian GPS could be applied. Although as I understand it, those are mainly intended to prevent you from making a cruise or ballistic missile from a box of parts by preventing high speed and high altitude service. Those are likely becoming insufficient in the era of drones, where you don't really need to go outside of civilian GPS approved envelope.
Or maybe it will be like cheap IR cameras. The best cheap IR cameras are currently imported from China, because US companies are prevented from creating anything comparable for the civilian market by ITAR.
Create a new "I'm Here" protocol that just sends an ID, GPS, and whatever telemetry fields people might want, like weather data.
Make them solar powered with LTO batteries that won't need maintenance for 30 years, and just mass produce one tiny transmitter unit.
They could serve as something like Meshtastic nodes in an emergency.
I work on private radio networks, and this would require replacing billions of dollars of hardware.
Additionally, to be useful for positioning, these locations probably need survey-grade accuracy of their locations. I imagine they would also need higher quality timesources than they typically have (if they even have timesources at all).
Then you respond to interference complaints as they come up, and commercial operators tend to be very vigorous in monitoring their spectrum that they're paying for, and can often pinpoint the location reasonably well already, and then the nice radio inspectors come out, triangulate it, and have a friendly talk.
Never really had a situation where spectrum that was regulated as "general user" (e.g., no need for a licence, but also no protection against interfering signals) and heavily used by by consumer appliances was modified to no longer be general user though.
There is a ton of gear depending on the current spectrum plan.
Seems to me all very problematic and what I read makes it look like the ground based GPS is a ruse for the real money which is selling access to 5G companies, who currently struggle with 5G inability to propagate indoors and in other common terrain.
They could solve that problem using spectrum they already have access to. There is no need to ruin 900Mhz for that.
I will be writing one. They do not have to attempt this on 900Mhz.
And they shouldn't, unless they can do it in a way that does not disturb considerable use of the spectrum present today.
And perhaps they can! The EU got along with US gps. I bet this can be done here too, no private spectrum required.