A coalition of organizations are opposing the FCC Office of Engineering and Technology’s recent grant of an experimental radio station construction permit and license to NextNav NN -2.56%↓. In a letter to the FCC, the entities say that the company risks endangering consumers, enterprises and government organizations in the San Jose, Calif., metropolitan area.
Organizations signing the letter include Connected Devices for America Coalition, Information Technology Industry Council, LoRa Alliance, RAIN Alliance, Security Industry Association, Security Industry Alarm Coalition (SIAC), Utilities Technology Council, Wi-Fi Alliance, Wi-SUN Alliance and Z-Wave Alliance.
The signatories warn that NextNav’s proposed high-power licensed operations would cause widespread harmful interference to hundreds of millions of existing low-power unlicensed Part 15 devices that share the band under current coexistence rules.
NextNav Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Renee Gregory has rebutted the criticisms in multiple FCC filings and statements, asserting that the company’s supplemental technical reports confirm 5G operations can coexist with unlicensed Part 15 devices across the entire lower 900 MHz band without unacceptable interference levels.
Gregory emphasized that NextNav’s experimental license for testing in Santa Clara County, California, fully complies with FCC conditions, including public notifications for operations from December 2025 through December 2027, and generates valuable data to advance national resilient PNT objectives.
She called opponents’ concerns unsupported misconceptions, urged the FCC to deny objections to the license and experimental data, and stressed the urgency of issuing a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to enable a market-based terrestrial complement and backup to GPS for national security and infrastructure resilience.
