A proposal working its way toward an FCC vote has broad implications for the 900 MHz spectrum that powers smart building systems and secondary GPS.

Most AV and IT professionals don’t spend much time thinking about GPS. Let alone secondary GPS.

It lives somewhere above the atmosphere, quietly guiding airplanes, shipping containers, financial transactions, and navigation apps. The system works so reliably that it fades into the background of modern infrastructure.

But inside Washington, D.C., a debate is underway that could affect far more than navigation satellites. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is exploring new technologies to serve as a backup for GPS. And one of the proposals gaining traction could have ripple effects across wireless systems used inside buildings.

For professionals responsible for AV systems, smart buildings, and networked environments, this is one of those regulatory conversations that may feel distant at first glance but has the potential to reshape parts of the wireless ecosystem many of us rely on every day.

Why the U.S. Wants a Backup to GPS

GPS is foundational to modern infrastructure, but it faces increasing attacks from bad actors seeking to disrupt critical infrastructure with harmful and illegal interference

The signals arriving from GPS satellites are incredibly weak by the time they reach Earth, making them vulnerable to interference, jamming, or deliberate spoofing. Governments worldwide have grown increasingly concerned about the resilience of what’s known as Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) infrastructure. These systems do far more than guide vehicles: GPS timing synchronizes telecommunications networks, financial markets, power grids, and logistics chains. A sustained disruption would move quickly through multiple layers of critical infrastructure.

That concern has been bipartisan for years. President Trump issued an executive order on PNT resilience during his first term. The Biden administration’s Department of Transportation put together a detailed framework to address it. Senators on both sides of the aisle have publicly called for action. That includes Ted Cruz and Democratic counterparts on the Commerce Committee. Congress has been aware of the problem for over a decade. The frustration, as more than one industry insider has noted, is that awareness has not translated into a solution.

At least fourteen companies are now actively developing secondary PNT technologies. Most are designed to work alongside existing infrastructure. Riding the sidebands of broadcast television towers using the ATSC 3.0 standard, leveraging eLoran networks, or using other approaches that do not require touching spectrum currently in use. One company, however, has proposed something different.

That’s where the story gets complicated for building technology professionals.

The NextNav Proposal and Secondary GPS

A publicly traded company called NextNav (Nasdaq: NN) has petitioned the FCC to reconfigure portions of the 902–928 MHz band and grant the company a nationwide license for 15 MHz of that spectrum to operate a 5G-based terrestrial PNT network. But that’s spectrum that today supports a wide range of unlicensed building, industrial, and IoT technologies

NextNav’s argument is straightforward: America needs a GPS backup, the 900 MHz band is underutilized, their technology requires this spectrum, and the solution could be deployed at no cost to taxpayers. The company also notes that it is already the largest licensee in the lower 900 MHz band through prior FCC auctions. NextNav’s technology doesn’t require this spectrum. It could be built on any 5G frequency. They want this spectrum because their proposed scheme would allow them to subsidize their PNT solution. As opposed to us paying for it directly.

The counter-argument, filed with the FCC by a broad coalition of engineering firms, industry organizations, public safety agencies, and technology manufacturers, is equally direct: the band is not underutilized, NextNav’s interference modeling contains fundamental flaws, and the thirteen alternative PNT solutions under consideration require no spectrum reconfiguration whatsoever.

Alliances Come Together

The Security Industry Association commissioned an independent engineering study through Pericle Communications that concluded NextNav’s proposed system would render a significant number of mission-critical public safety and security devices inoperable in real-world building environments. This was filed with the FCC in September 2025. Technical rebuttals from the Z-Wave Alliance, LoRa Alliance, RAIN Alliance, and Wi-SUN Alliance reached similar conclusions.

The breadth of opposition is notable. The Connected Devices for America Coalition (CDAC), formed specifically in response to this proceeding, now includes the tolling industry, railroad operators, the Wi-Fi Alliance, the LoRa Alliance, the Z-Wave Alliance, the Wi-SUN Alliance, the RAIN Alliance, Itron, Amazon, Silicon Labs, Texas Instruments, and the Connectivity Standards Alliance (which governs the Matter smart home standard). Public safety organizations including APCO and the International Association of Fire Chiefs have filed formal objections. The Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in Congress has sent a formal inquiry to the FCC.

In terms of comment volume, this proceeding has drawn more FCC response than any issue since net neutrality.

Why the 900 MHz Band Is So Deeply Embedded in Building Technology

The 902–928 MHz range has become a foundational layer for smart building wireless systems for a simple reason: physics. Lower frequencies penetrate walls, floors, and building materials that stop 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz signals cold. A Z-Wave Long Range device at 900 MHz can communicate across distances and through obstructions that Wi-Fi cannot reliably match. That’s why building management systems, wireless occupancy sensors, HVAC control nodes, security panels, and many professionally installed access control systems gravitate toward this band.

But Z-Wave is only the headline. Inside 902–928 MHz you will also find:

• Active RFID asset-tracking systems — used to locate AV equipment carts, medical devices, and IT hardware across large facilities.
• Electronic shelf labels and LCD display tags — common in large corporate campuses and retail environments.
• Railroad and freight logistics tracking — including RFID tags used by major shipping carriers.
• Electronic tolling transponders — the technology in millions of vehicles used to wirelessly pay for tolls and road use.
• LoRa-based IoT networks — used for smart utility metering, environmental monitoring, and industrial sensing.
• Wi-SUN mesh networks — powering smart city infrastructure and outdoor facilities management.
• Wireless fire and life safety sensors — including devices protecting federal buildings, schools, hospitals, and embassies, per a November 2025 FCC filing.

Wild Wild Wireless

The shared, unlicensed nature of this spectrum is governed by FCC Part 15 rules requiring all devices to coexist without causing harmful interference to others. This has worked reliably for over thirty years. The concern raised by opponents of the NextNav proposal is that introducing a high-power licensed transmitter operating under different rules would fundamentally alter that coexistence framework.

The Z-Wave Alliance’s technical analysis found that retransmission caused by 5G interference would significantly reduce battery lifespan in currently installed devices: A particularly meaningful concern for facilities with thousands of battery-powered wireless sensors that cannot easily be replaced or serviced at scale.

The AV-IT Angle: When RF Problems Become Network and Security Problems

AV and IT teams have spent years converging their infrastructures. That includes IP-based AV distribution, unified endpoint management, and cloud-connected room systems. The assumption underpinning most of that work is that the physical wireless layer in the building is stable.

A disruption at the 900 MHz layer doesn’t stay at the RF level. It surfaces up the stack. Consider the operational picture:

• Occupancy sensors that fail to detect room presence will disrupt automated HVAC and lighting adjustments, leading to uncomfortable environments and wasted energy.
• Wireless access control systems experiencing signal degradation may produce missed authentication events or dropped alerts, particularly in underground areas and building perimeters where 900 MHz penetration is doing the most work.
• RFID asset tracking systems that go offline mean IT hardware, AV equipment, and shared devices become invisible to facility management dashboards.
• Building management systems that feed data to workplace experience platforms will generate missing data, false occupancy states, and a cascade of helpdesk tickets that ultimately trace back to RF interference.

The security dimension is one that IT leaders and CISOs should not overlook. Wireless motion sensors, door contacts, and glass-break detectors operating in the 900 MHz band are part of the physical security perimeter in many enterprise facilities. Engineering studies filed by multiple industry coalitions have concluded that interference from NextNav’s proposed 5G PNT operation would significantly reduce the effective range and reliability of those devices in real-world conditions.

Physical security gaps that trace back to RF interference are not hypothetical. They are exactly the scenario the Security Industry Association commissioned its independent engineering study to quantify.

Spectrum policy rarely feels urgent until the day it does.

Where the Regulatory Process Stands Right Now

The FCC’s formal Notice of Inquiry on PNT (WT Docket 25-110) closed for public comment in May 2025. Since then, the commission has formally notified the Office of Management and Budget of a pending Notice of Proposed Rulemaking. The administrative step that precedes formal rulemaking. Industry insiders expect the NPRM to surface at the April 30^th 2026 FCC open meeting.

It is important to be precise about what an NPRM is and is not. It is a formal notice of a proposed rule change. The beginning of a rulemaking process, not a final decision. Even if an NPRM is issued, a full public comment period follows before any rule can take effect. That means the record that ultimately shapes the rule will continue to be built in the weeks and months ahead.

There are two broad scenarios industry observers are watching. In the first, the NPRM explicitly favors NextNav’s spectrum reconfiguration proposal. That would trigger an intensified lobbying and public comment response from the CDAC coalition and its constituent industries. In the second the NPRM frames secondary GPS as a system-of-systems challenge. This invites all competing solutions to compete on equal terms, and declines to restructure the 900 MHz band in any single company’s favor. In that scenario, the existing 900 MHz ecosystem would presumably remain intact. Now, there’s always the chance that, even in a system-of-systems scenario, NN’s petition is granted as part of a multi-pronged solution.

The outcome of that NPRM, and the comment process that follows, will be shaped in part by the voices in the record. Regulators benefit from hearing directly from the end-users and facility operators who would bear the real-world consequences of these decisions. Not just from manufacturers and trade associations.

That’s where AV and IT professionals have a role to play.

What AV and IT Leaders Can Do Before April 30th

Staying aware of this proceeding is the first step. Engaging with it is the more impactful one. Three concrete actions worth taking this week:

1. File a Comment with the FCC. Any individual or organization can submit a comment on FCC dockets WT 24-240 and WT 25-110 at fcc.gov/ecfs. No legal expertise is required. A clear, factual description of the 900 MHz-dependent devices in your facility, the operational functions they support, and the business risk if those devices are disrupted is exactly the kind of real-world evidence that the FCC record benefits from.
2. Contact Your Congressional Representatives. This proceeding sits on genuinely bipartisan ground. Regardless of who represents your district, they are likely aware of the secondary GPS issue and almost certainly have not heard from enterprise technology operators about the downstream consequences of NextNav’s specific approach. A direct, factual message from a constituent business describing real operational risk carries weight.
3. Engage Your Industry Association. Check whether your AV, IT, or facilities association has taken a position on this proceeding or connected with the CDAC coalition. The record built in these proceedings is stronger when it includes voices from end-users and building operators. Not just product manufacturers.

Cross Technology Collaboration

The AV industry increasingly overlaps with broader building technology ecosystems. Control systems, occupancy sensors, environmental monitoring, and asset tracking are now common elements of integrated smart environments. Many of those devices rely on wireless connectivity in shared spectrum bands.

Infrastructure technologies rarely exist in isolation. Decisions made for national security or telecommunications resilience can cascade into the systems running inside corporate campuses, universities, hospitals, and facilities of every kind.

The 900 MHz band has quietly enabled smart buildings for over thirty years. The regulatory conversation underway in Washington right now is worth following. Because sometimes the most significant changes affecting the systems inside your building start with decisions being made far outside of it.

Tim Albright

Website

Tim Albright is the founder of AVNation and is the driving force behind the AVNation network. He carries the InfoComm CTS, a B.S. from Greenville College and is pursuing an M.S. in Mass Communications from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. When not steering the AVNation ship, Tim has spent his career designing systems for churches both large and small, Fortune 500 companies, and education facilities.

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