America’s overreliance on GPS leaves it vulnerable to jamming and spoofing. Building a terrestrial backup using 5G could secure national defense and critical infrastructure.
The Global Position System (GPS) is now embedded in practically every device Americans use, from computers to phones to cars. Millions of people use it every day for travel. Parents are increasingly using it to track their children and pets. And America’s military relies upon it for everything from missile targeting to tank transport to drone piloting.
This did not happen by accident. By and large, GPS is an extremely reliable technology. But it can also fail, is easily spoofable, and is already being surpassed by our adversaries. In 2022, a random GPS outage forced all airplanes away from a 40-mile swath near the Dallas airport; the cause remains unknown, although researchers have determined it was a complex jamming operation. In the early 2010s, Iran may have stolen an American drone via GPS spoofing. It is still unclear exactly how they did it, though Iran unquestionably engages in spoofing operations. The Russo-Ukrainian War, for its part, is rife with examples of how GPS can be blocked or spoofed.
As for being surpassed? China’s BeiDou, an alternative navigation system, is now expanding to more countries. And while China’s boasting sometimes obscures its technology’s actual capabilities, the system is likely more accurate than GPS. There are major drawbacks, obviously—namely the fact that the Chinese government likely has backdoors—but seeing how willing most governments were to set up official TikTok accounts, that fact will probably not concern most outside of Washington and Western Europe.
Building a Resilient Alternative
So what’s the solution? While making advancements to GPS is one approach, there is another: building layers of resilience by creating an American terrestrial alternative to GPS using existing 5G technologies.
There are numerous reasons why this is the better option compared to simply doubling down on GPS. For one, no matter how much GPS is improved, nothing can fix the fact that satellite signals are weak and can still be blown out of the sky. When taking into account how reliant America’s national security, public safety, and critical infrastructure are on GPS, this is an obvious disaster waiting to happen.
GPS is also simply unreliable at times. A “no signal” message when driving through a dense forest to an Airbnb is annoying; that same message while navigating in an airliner could be deadly.
Learning from Adversaries’ Systems
A terrestrial alternative can easily solve these issues by providing a backup to GPS through a system of systems. This is likely why America’s adversaries, chiefly China, have worked hard to create terrestrial alternatives to satellite systems. Alongside BeiDou, China recently completed its eLoran system, the third leg of its positioning “triad”—space, terrestrial, and fiber-optic—which allows its army to continue to have accurate positioning even if its satellites are knocked out or if it finds themselves in one of China’s numerous mountain areas.
But America’s government, on a bipartisan basis, has confoundingly refused to take much action. And it’s not as if they have not been warned; expert groups and senior retired officials have repeatedly urged the government not to delay in creating a GPS alternative.
One would think that this delay is due to politics. After all, getting anything significant passed in Congress today is obviously difficult, especially when so many stakeholders—from telecom providers to satellite manufacturers to government agencies—would play a role in its development. There is also the issue of payment; senators and representatives are loath to spend big on a project that may not yield tangible results for years.
But Congress has already taken action here. President Donald Trump signed the National Timing Resilience and Security Act in 2018, which mandated the creation of a terrestrial timing system. And the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has recently opened proceedings on going even further. This could, if speedily completed, result in a terrestrial system being put in place by the end of President Trump’s term. But it has received pushback from Chinese-affiliated companies, who are opposed to an American development of these technologies.
The Bull Moose Project recently released a report detailing the risks of continued inaction—and the foreign influence campaigns working to keep America vulnerable. While adversaries have built multi-layered positioning systems that combine satellites with terrestrial and fiber-based networks, the United States remains overly reliant on a single, space-based system. This, far into the twenty-first century, is no longer acceptable.
We Must Leverage 5G Infrastructure
The solution is sitting right in front of us. We need to leverage existing 5G infrastructure to deliver a resilient, ground-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) system. With the FCC now actively reviewing this issue, Congress can help by directing the Commission to prioritize fast-tracking a market-driven solution. No new taxes. No waiting for billion-dollar defense contracts. Just a secure, American-made system that protects our economy, our military, and our way of life.
Plus, a reliable terrestrial GPS alternative would be a boon to first responders, particularly those in rural areas. To say nothing of the benefit it would provide to America’s defenders.
America can no longer rely solely on GPS, which will mean it can begin catching up to our major adversaries and will confidently be able to enter the final three quarters of the twenty-first century no longer wedded to a purely twentieth-century technology.
About the Author: Anthony J. Constantini
Anthony J. Constantini is a policy analyst at the Bull Moose Project and the Foreign Affairs editor at Upward News. His work has appeared in a variety of domestic and international publications.
Image: metamorworks/shutterstock
