House lawmakers convened June 4 to address growing national security and public safety vulnerabilities surrounding the nation’s positioning, navigation, and timing infrastructure, with experts warning that heavy U.S. reliance on GPS leaves critical systems exposed to electronic warfare.
The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Communications and Technology hosted the bipartisan educational hearing to evaluate strategies for strengthening the reliability and resiliency of PNT services. Because the subcommittee maintains jurisdiction over the Federal Communications Commission, lawmakers heavily scrutinized the regulatory agency’s role in spectrum management and its ongoing evaluation of terrestrial backup networks.
Among the chief solutions under review was a ground-based, 5G-powered 3D PNT network developed by NextNav NN 0.00%↑, whose chief executive, Mariam Sorond, testified before the panel. “Other countries have recognized the grave risks that come with relying on a single, spacebased PNT system. China has multiple systems to complement its satellite-based PNT network, BeiDou,” Sorond said in testimony to the committee. “Russia has also built a ground-based backup. Unfortunately, the United States has not done the same, and we are now in a position of needing to catch up to our allies and our adversaries alike.”
According to a report by Broadband Breakfast, at least eight lawmakers expressed serious reservations about NextNav’s proposal to deploy its system within the lower 900 MegaHertz (MHz) band. Opponents and other users of that spectrum band have aggressively lobbied against the plan, warning that higher-power equipment from NextNav would produce severe signal interference and render existing consumer devices completely unusable.
Ahead of the session, prominent national security and emergency officials submitted formal statements urging Congress to act before a widespread failure occurs. Retired Navy Adm. Michael Rogers, former commander of U.S. Cyber Command and director of the National Security Agency, warned lawmakers that GPS jamming and spoofing have become routine features of modern electronic warfare. Rogers asserted that establishing layered resilience for domestic PNT infrastructure is no longer a technological hurdle, but rather a bureaucratic one, pressing regulators to move with immediate urgency.
Simultaneously, a coalition of 11 public safety officials filed letters with the subcommittee and the FCC emphasizing the fatal limitations of current GPS networks during domestic emergencies. The officials noted that first responders currently lack a dependable system to track personnel and civilians inside multi-story structures, arguing that the implementation of dedicated, ground-based 3D location technology is vital to accelerating indoor search-and-rescue operations.
GPS Innovation Alliance Executive Director Lisa Dyer, in testimony to the committee, said that the organization uses the term “complementary” deliberately. “No system truly replaces GPS in the highly unlikely event that 24 or 32 satellites are unable to transmit,” Dyer said. “The good news is that several complements are already in use, as a 2021 DHS report noted, each with advantages and disadvantages. More are nearly operational. NTIA provided a valuable inventory in the FCC’s Notice of Inquiry on PNT, and we would add more to that list.”
