NextNav's Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2024/09/nextnavs-callous-band-grab-privatize-900-mhz

by hn_acker • 2 years ago

105 31 2 years ago

kldx• 2 years ago

How common is enforcement in these situations? What happens if a 900MHz baby monitor continues to be used after this chunk of the spectrum is privatized?

ugjka• 2 years ago

Has there been a precedent like this? I imagine tracking down a gazillion baby monitors would be very tiresome

heywire• 2 years ago

Not to mention that probably a majority of the electric gas and water meters in the US operate in the 902-928 range.

EdwardDiego• 2 years ago

Generally, from my time in a radio spectrum regulatory body, you start by enforcing EMR compliance at the importer/manufacturing level, so no-one can buy a new 900ishMHz baby monitor that would cause interference - either by regulating allowed transmitter power or just flat out verboten.

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.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

Wireless microphones used by newsies or other production types used a frequency range that was deprecated. Your gear didn't just magically stop working. The places you were allowed to use it got really small. When a crew works an event like a sporting event, all wireless devices and their frequency must be logged to prevent competing signals between crews. If you show up with the old stuff, you're pretty much laughed out of the room and denied use of the gear. At less regulated places, your use of the equipment will just be subject to interference from other signals that are now using the bands. If your use causes interference, you can be subject to appropriate penalties

blackeyeblitzar• 2 years ago

This is just terrible and I’m grateful the EFF keeps an eye on these rent seekers. How can we stop this?

Jtsummers2• 2 years ago

Submit your own comments to the FCC and/or reach out to your legislators.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

It also helps if your comments are sent with a check larger than the other side's lobbyist's

ddingus6• 2 years ago

Yes. That can be quite effective.

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.

mikewarot3• 2 years ago

We do need a land based GPS alternative. The consequences of losing GPS without a ground based backup in place are almost incalculable.

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.

xbar• 2 years ago

Consequences are incalculable. Likelihood is calculable.

Kirby642• 2 years ago

Do you know how many RF signals would be interrupted by a 1ms broadcast every second that covers every possible spectrum? A hint: most of them. Many protocols rely on exclusive access to the spectrum, and couldn’t possibly be synchronized well enough to have a constant 1ms pulse interrupt them.

cornholio• 2 years ago

OP mentioned packetized, not digital.

dylan6044• 2 years ago

Couldn't they do it in a similar manner as all of the ad tracking stuff that places signals in frequencies out of human hearing ranges? By all types, do you mean my WiFi router too, or just the public broadcasters like TV/Radio?

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.

ddingus6• 2 years ago

Actually people can hear those. Not all people of course, but I am noticing artifacts in the vocals on some music remasters. Others have reported similar experiences.

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.

aftbit2• 2 years ago

Yeah, maybe something like LORAN? Or maybe quantum gyroscopes will shrink in cost and size to allow totally offline navigation without references beyond a known starting point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gyroscope

mikewarot3• 2 years ago

If quantum gyroscopes were made practical, they wouldn't be sold to civilians due to ITAR, as it would make it far, far too easy to make drones that could reach out and strike Peking, Hanoi or Leningrad from here near Fort Dearborn.

eternityforest• 2 years ago

They could just require it on buildings above a certain height.

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.

ac29• 2 years ago

This allows implementation of a new public service with minimal cost to all concerned

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).

ddingus6• 2 years ago

Here is the money quote:

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.

cameldrv• 2 years ago

You know, if someone were actually interested in doing a modern terrestrial navigation system, I think the DME band would be where to go. It's 962-1213Mhz, a whopping 250Mhz of super prime spectrum. Lots of DMEs are now being decommissioned, so it shouldn't need as much spectrum as it has. Now, there are some other things in that band like radars and such, but I'd bet there's at least 30Mhz or so that you could set aside for a more modern ground based navigation system.

jakeogh• 2 years ago

It seems like there is an asymmetry, we need a way to allocate this pre-existing 'unlicensed' spectrum explicitly for public use... and 900MHz is def a sweet spot. It shouldn't even make sense to attempt to reallocate it. The public ownership should be immutable.

NextNav's Callous Land-Grab to Privatize 900 MHz

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