FCC chair says we’re too dependent on GPS and wants to explore ‘alternatives’ (read: multi billion contract with Musk)

Comments

• stoy@lemmy.zip ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  And this is why the EU should have ignored the US when they whined that our Gallileo system used different frequencies from GPS.

  As it stands now Gallileo was built to using frequencies that the US can jam using GPS.

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  • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Ooh i did not know about that, interesting. However they could just have built their GPS sats in such a way that allows a wide range of frequency jamming anyways.

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  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    there’s a significant difference in jamming capability between different frequencies? Are you jamming them from space or something?

    That doesn’t really seem like a significant technical limitation to me.

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• TommySoda@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  GPS isn’t just for google maps. I’m a land surveyor and we literally use GPS every single day. Without it we’re basically fucked. We do hydrographic surveying and without GPS we’d have to basically go back to analog as 90% of the equipment on our boat would be useless. Good luck figuring out how much water is left in the Colorado river without it.

  The National Geodetic Survey (NGS) will be completely fucked without it as it’s built on decades of data and monitoring. You can’t just look for “alternatives.” Y’all know what a GEOID model, state plane, or ellipsoidal height are? Because I’m pretty sure these cucks don’t and whatever Elmo has is not robust enough for the precision that is required for what we use GPS for. And without shit like that you couldn’t hit the broad side of a city.

  www.ngs.noaa.gov

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  • metaldream@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    These guys don’t care. They’re a bunch of gangsters trying to profit by dismantling the government and selling corporate replacements for its services.

    We’re either headed towards long term fascism or a massive civil backlash.

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  • IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Without it we’re basically fucked.

    Meh, there is Galileo.

    You may or maynot need new equipment tho

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    • TommySoda@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Yeah, imma have to go through our equipment to find out if they go through with this. If we do have to replace it, this shit is not cheap.

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• FiskFisk33@startrek.website ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  America is too dependent on tech developed by the american military?!

  the fuck?

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  • some_designer_dude@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    But Elon doesn’t own the American Military (yet) so this makes sense. Its just vertical integration, really.

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• RobotToaster@mander.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Most receivers already use GPS, GLONASS, Galileo and beidou.

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  • ms_lane@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Also QZSS, but that’s just GPS not run by US (it uses GPS signalling, but it’s designed to look directly down when over a small arc of Japan (which covers Tokyo) so you can get more accurate GPS inside the ‘urban valley’

    We get slightly better GPS in Australia (esp. Adelaide) due to it too, since the other end of the orbit is over AU.

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• IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  🤣

  Who’s “We”? The Government?

  “Government is too reliant on Government?” (GPS is run by the US Government)

  So they want to rely less on government, but relying on a corporation.

  🤔

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  • Goodmorningsunshine@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Sounds like the FCC chair is taking his orders from Musk

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• JackbyDev@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  That’s weird, I always viewed GPS as a form of American Imperialism. Sure, it’s a bit extreme maybe, but America does own and operate it and jam it when enemies try to use it.

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  • ReluctantMuskrat@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Calling GPS part of imperialism is a stretch. It was put in the air at no cost to another country and can be used without cost by anybody, but nobody has to use it. Other countries can launch their own satellites if they want, but they don’t because that’s expensive and GPS is free. The US isn’t making money off of it or exploiting another country with it.

    Yes, the US can jam it regionally when in conflict but of course why wouldn’t we? No reason to help the enemy.

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    • IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Other countries can launch their own satellites if they want, but they don’t because that’s expensive

      They do, and they did:

      EU (not a country, but still)

      Russia

      China

      They all have their own.

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      technically, originally the GPS system was private, until made public, where it had error obfuscation, until semi recently it was released fully.

      It was originally funded by the US government, still is, it’s just publicly accessible now.

      (the original usecase being for shit like ICBMs and what not, obviously)

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    • dv48@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Except for Galileo and glonass.

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• Petter1@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Corruption?

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  • hansolo@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    My phone uses the Graft Positioning System to tell me where I can go and who I can talk to.

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• KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  GPS? You mean the technology that we as a country collective maintain? And have continued to maintain since it’s immediate inception?

  Yeah, ok.

  Call me when you start using glonass.

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• hansolo@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I really hope this means another attempt to use the magnetosphere itself. MAGNAV might actually be possible at this point.

  electronicdesign.com/…/electronic-design-magnetic…

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  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    No, the “better” article has a buzzword to information ratio of 3:1.

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  • thog78@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    How does that handle high tension lines and the like, doesn’t it disturb the magnetosphere far too much? Kinda the reason even compasses don’t work anymore in town?

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      this would also be susceptible to magnetic field switching as well, shouldnt be a huge technical limitation, but im not sure accuracy is going to be quite as good.

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    • hansolo@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      No idea. I think there’s a lot of machine learning - enabled mapping up front.

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• QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  One interesting alternative would be the Visual Positioning System (VPS) that Niantic has built from Pokemon go player data. Basically you can take a picture outside and your phone will know exactly where you are:

  www.nianticspatial.com/locate#vps

  arstechnica.com/…/niantic-uses-pokemon-go-player-…

  Too bad they’re getting close to being bought out by a company that’s notorious for squeezing out every penny from their player base.

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  • Kecessa@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Yeah so good luck using that in the middle of the woods

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  • tehWrapper@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Would this work in a war zone if everything that used to be there was gone now?

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    • QuadratureSurfer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I doubt it would work well, but with enough training data it would be able to pick up on some areas. Especially if there are large landmarks in the frame (mountains/hills/rivers, etc.).

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  • Natanael@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    It’s also what Google Maps live view is using. Street view imagery plus rough location plus on-phone camera sensor calibration data allows it to compute highly accurate positions relative to surroundings.

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• potatopotato@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  There’s already a startup trying to get the FCC to give them half of the 915mhz band (meshtastic, smart home stuff, ELRS, ham radio) for a pay to win GPS alternative.

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  • stopdropandprole@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    first time hearing about this, any more details you can provide or link to a news release?

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    • potatopotato@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Nextnav

      docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-24-776A1.txt

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• cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  he should explore seppuku with musk

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• ABetterTomorrow@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I hope I’m not reading into this too much and thinking he just wants to use Russias standard of satellite technology. L5 GPS is better accuracy. Also if you look at 3GPP’s future planning and goals, the game is to utilize all RF technology together. 5G broadcast and LoRaWAN will make sensors happens within cities and highways and that working together with GPS and cell, you can get readings about a foot or less.

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  • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    this is just some autistic shit from musk most likely.

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• werefreeatlast@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Understood! Anyway, thanks to the ruzzian GPS, I made a left over the canyon. Currently dangling. I think its wrong!..oh wait, it’s because I didn’t tell it to not fly or avoid bodies of water. Got it!

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• Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Maps still work without GPS though. I wonder how many people could find their location on one?

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  • brygphilomena@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    A good 5 years ago or so I was getting a breakfast burrito when an older couple came in asking for directions. They had an old school mapbook. It took a minute to orient myself, but I found they were on the wrong page.

    Its one of my bucket list items, but an old school road trip with nothing but a mapbook and a compass. No real destination, no time frame. Just the open road and exploring. And no GPS to make it efficient or optimized where I’ll soar right past everything.

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    • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Don’t really need a compass for a road trip given you are just following roads. I went on a bike ride somewhat recently following a similar idea, using a tablet instead of a book but I just had an offline map and it doesn’t support GPS. I followed various paths and roads going around. Was a nice day trip.

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• bitwolf@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Don’t we use Galileo now instead?

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• BradleyUffner@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I’m kind of surprised that Musk hasn’t proposed turning Selective Availability back on.

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• redditfuckingsucks@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  as opposed to what? can’t exactly say we should use something else if the government is intent on firing everyone that isn’t actively engaging in the tariff war

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• regrub@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  The article is pretty vague, but I bet stellar navigation is a strong contender. Although, it works best only when there’s good visibility of the night sky

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  • Neverclear@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wait til you hear about radio astronomy:

    The brightest discrete radio source is the Sun (Figure 1.10), but the Sun is much less dominant than it is in visible light. The radio sky is dark even when the Sun is up because atmospheric molecules and dust particles don’t scatter radio waves whose wavelengths are much larger than these particles. Most radio observations can be made day or night. Clouds are also nearly transparent at wavelengths λ>2λ>2 cm, so long-wavelength radio observations can be made even when the sky is overcast.

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• lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  They’re called maps. I have several in my glove box.

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  • slumberlust@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    How many gloves are in there?

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    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      2

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    • HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      Used to be 6, now 4.

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• futatorius@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  This is going to kill people in order to enrich SwastiKet.

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• usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Or is he referring to GLONASS, the Russian version of GPS?

  In any case, I guess it’s good the EU has the Galileo network specificaly to have an alternative to avoid depency on the US

  Modern and newer phones will often use all three system (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS) + sometimes others at the same time since it improves accuracy

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