The top officials of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force are looking at \u201cdifferent mitigation steps\u201d to counter potential effects on GPS receivers that could emerge from the FCC\u2019s decision to approve a new commercial L-Band network for 5G infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Two days after the FCC approved Ligado\u2019s<\/strong> application to build a new low-power terrestrial network for nationwide 5G, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein reiterated that he was \u201cvery concerned\u201d about the decision and how the new network could potential interfere with GPS signals.<\/p>\n \u201cWe as a nation, and I would offer as a globe, rely on GPS to do so much, that affects far more than military operations,\u201d he said in an April 16 teleconference hosted by the Defense Writer\u2019s Group. \u201cThis is our quality of life. This is how we run businesses.\u201d<\/p>\n Goldfein and other Pentagon leaders have long sought to prevent Ligado\u2019s application from being approved. He described the potential effects on GPS receivers as, \u201cIf you are trying to have a quiet conversation, and in the next room is a 500-watt speaker blaring music at you, that gives you sort of a visual of what potentially could be the interference with this GPS signal, that \u2026 absolutely has got to be pristine, and [that] the world relies on.\u201d<\/p>\n Gen. John \u201cJay\u201d Raymond, who is currently dual-hatted as the Space Force\u2019s chief of space operations and as the U.S. Space Command commander, would likely develop the mitigation plan that Goldfein would then support as the Air Force chief of staff, along with the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff before presenting to the secretary of defense, he noted. He did not reveal a timeframe for such a decision to be made, but emphasized that it is a \u201chuge challenge.\u201d<\/p>\n Multiple members of Congress serving on the armed services committees have loudly criticized the FCC\u2019s move to approve the Ligado application, with the four leaders of the Senate Armed Services and House Armed Services Committees writing an op-ed published Wednesday on C4ISRNET threatening to \u201cclean up this mess\u201d should the FCC not resolve U.S. military concerns about the decision.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, two top Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee added their voices to the fray, with Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), ranking member of the HASC Strategic Forces Subcommittee, and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.), ranking member of the Emerging Threats and Capabilities Subcommittee, issuing a joint statement calling the FCC\u2019s decision \u201calarming and jeopardizes America\u2019s national and economic security.\u201d<\/p>\n The two lawmakers criticized the commission\u2019s vote to approve the application despite broad bipartisan and bicameral government opposition, stating that it was \u201cunprecedented for the FCC to take such brazen action.\u201d<\/p>\n They also dismissed Ligado\u2019s overall business plan as purportedly failing to enhance the United States\u2019 5G influence worldwide while compromising its GPS capability.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been extremely vocal on the need for America to regain our authority as a global leader in 5G and offer a realistic alternative to China\u2019s Huawei<\/strong>,\u201d the statement said. \u201cHowever, Ligado\u2019s plan does neither. America\u2019s appetite for spectrum will only increase, and the FCC\u2019s actions sets a dangerous precedent that may force Congress to revisit this issue.<\/p>\n \u201cWe firmly believe that we must increase our investment in 5G, but through the implementation of dynamic spectrum sharing technologies that allow our military and commercial sectors to co-exist,\u201d the lawmakers continued. \u201cThis alternative provides the only realistic path forward that protects our national security, recharges our domestic 5G industries, and presents a trusted, secure alternative to Huawei.\u201d<\/p>\n This article was originally published by our sister publication Defense Daily. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The top officials of the U.S. Air Force and Space Force are looking at \u201cdifferent mitigation steps\u201d to counter potential effects on GPS receivers that could emerge from the FCC\u2019s decision to approve a new commercial L-Band network for 5G infrastructure. Two days after the FCC approved Ligado\u2019s application to build a new low-power terrestrial network for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59862"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59862\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59862"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59862"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}