Pentagon officials tell Congress the FCC plan to allow 5G network threatens national security

Pentagon officials are telling Congress it should reverse its decision to allow a Virginia company to set up a 5G network that could disrupt military and civilian GPS signals.

The officials testified Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee,  to voice their objections to the FCC-approved plan for Ligado Networks to set up a system on the L-band spectrum. By using the L-band, the officials said, Ligado’s system could interfere with GPS signals that are vital for national security. 

“GPS allows us to shoot, move, and communicate with speed, precision, and over great distances,” said Gen. Jay Raymond, commander of U.S. Space Command. “It is employed in every step of the kill chain to defeat our adversaries.”

Those signals must be protected, the space chief also said.

“Transmitters adjacent to the GPS spectrum have significant potential to disrupt and degrade the operation of the approximately 1 million GPS receivers in the Department of Defense inventory, and therefore bring harm to military training, readiness, and DoD’s ability to conduct operations,” Raymond said.

Signals from GPS, though, are weak, said Michael Griffin, the undersecretary of Defense for research and engineering.

“For this reason, they are assigned to portions of the radio spectrum – frequency bands – reserved exclusively for their use,” Griffin testified. “Any nearby transmitter operating in or close to the frequency bands that have been set aside for GPS would overwhelm their signals.”

The FCC approved the Ligado plan last month, when other government officials were distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, said committee Chairman Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Oklahoma. 

Within days of the April 20 decision, Inhofe and bipartisan leaders of the House and Senate Armed Services committees told the FCC to reverse the ruling, or Congress would impel them to do so.

Yesterday’s hearing did not include testimony from Ligado.