FCC Hears More Concerns as Progeny Updates FCC on Status of 900 MHz Licenses

Progeny stressed in a progress report on the status of the construction and operation of its multilateration location and monitoring service licenses that its parent NextNav is seeking revisions to the rules for that spectrum. The changes “would enable highly accurate, widescale geolocation services, greatly enhancing the efficacy and utility of Progeny’s terrestrial position, navigation, and time (PNT) services as a complement and backup to the Global Positioning System,” said a filing Friday in docket 12-202. NextNav’s proposal for the 902-928 MHz band has proven controversial. Amateur radio operators have opposed NextNav’s request, making hundreds of filings ahead of a Thursday deadline for initial comments (see 2408120024). “The Commission’s action on the Petition will enable the deployment of a widescale terrestrial PNT complement and backup without the need for federal funding,” Progeny said. The Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority also raised concerns. The authority’s licensed RFID devices “are tuned to different frequencies on a site-by-site basis to avoid interference with existing operators,” said a filing posted Friday: “If all existing licensed and unlicensed users of the lower 900 MHz frequencies are compressed into a significantly reduced portion of spectrum, Metro will face potential significant difficulties identifying frequencies that can be used for its transponder communications without being subject to interference moving forward.” The authority also questioned the lack of a guardband to protect its operations and NextNav's real-world testing. NextNav’s plans “call for higher-powered devices (two orders of magnitude more powerful) and significantly larger volumes of traffic than are currently in use on these frequencies” and the potential impact on Metro’s roadside antennas, readers and in-vehicle transponders “have not been properly evaluated,” the authority said. The band provides connections for “tens of millions” of smart-home and smart-building devices and industrial solutions, said Reliable Controls, which offers products that use the frequencies, including its EnOcean line. “The reallocation of this spectrum would potentially render these devices inoperative, potentially causing widespread disruption and resulting in billions of dollars in economic loss to schools, hospitals, government buildings, offices, companies, industry and individuals,” the company said.