FCC Wants Alternatives to GPS, Raising Possibility of Starlink Involvement

The Federal Communications Commission is making a push for the US to develop alternatives to GPS, opening the door for satellite systems like SpaceX’s Starlink to play a role. 

FCC Chair Brendan Carr will ask the commission to vote later this month on starting a formal inquiry to explore GPS alternatives. Although GPS has long been indispensable to mapping and location services, the satellite-driven technology is run by a single provider, the US Department of Defense, through a collection of 31 satellites.  

“Continuing to rely so heavily on one system leaves us exposed,” Carr tweeted on Wednesday. “And the threats to GPS are only going to increase.”

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The threats include foreign governments and hackers jamming GPS signals or even spoofing them, which can produce a false location and send cars, ships, and planes to the wrong location. It’s a longstanding problem; in 2018, Congress passed the National Timing Resilience and Security Act to create a backup to GPS. Prior to that, the Obama administration sought to protect the existing GPS systems from attacks and spur the creation of backups. 

But progress has been slow. Although the first Trump administration promoted the development of GPS backups, the policy faced criticism for a lack of standardization. The Department of Transportation has also been soliciting bids for alternatives. In July, the agency awarded $7 million in contracts “to nine Complementary Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) technology vendors” to conduct real-world tests with the goal of “facilitating” adoption. 

For now, we don’t know what Carr has in mind. But in a statement, he noted, “We hope this effort will engage stakeholders across government and industry to encourage the development of new PNT technologies and solutions.”

As a result, it’s possible SpaceX and other satellite providers will lend their support. In 2022, researchers found that the constant radio signals from Starlink satellites can be reverse-engineered to act as a backup to GPS. 

At the time, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted: “Starlink can obviously offer far more robust positioning than GPS, as it will have ~1000X more satellites over time.”

SpaceX and the Transportation Department didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

About Michael Kan

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I’ve been working as a journalist for over 15 years—I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017.

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