ATSC 3.0 Could Provide Backup for GPS, Close National Security Gap, Say NAB Speakers

LAS VEGAS -- ATSC 3.0 could be used to create the only viable backup for GPS and address a major U.S. national security vulnerability, said broadcasters and experts at this week's 2023 NAB Show. The U.S. power grid, financial markets and telecom industries rely on precise timing based on GPS to function, and would grind to a halt within days if it were rendered inoperable, said Key2Mobile founder Patrick Diamond, a member of the National Space Based Position, Navigation and Timing Advisory Board.

The U.S. is the only superpower without a GPS backup, but companies working under NAB’s pilot program have found a method through which ATSC 3.0 broadcasters could fill that backup function, Diamond said. “If they took down GPS, our economy would stop,” within days he said. The ATSC 3.0 backup called BPS is capable, uses largely existing infrastructure, and could be the best solution to a problem national security experts have studied for 20 years, Diamond said.

The concept is based on the fact that ATSC 3.0 broadcasts create a precise time stamp for the emission of each broadcast frame, said Mark Corl, Triveni Digital senior vice president-emergent technology development, who presented a paper, "Case Study of Developing an Emission Time Stabilization Proof-of-Concept Prototype for ATSC 3.0-based Broadcast Positioning System (BPS)," at the NAB Show. That time stamp can be used along with the location of multiple ATSC 3.0 transmitters in a given area to calculate a precise position comparable in accuracy to GPS. Triveni, Avateq and the Department of Transportation are involved in the project, panelists said.

Precise timing dependent on GPS is used in electrical power generation, coordinating financial transactions and synchronizing cellphone radios, said Diamond. A BPS backup to that system would close a national security gap while providing an important application for 3.0, said NAB Vice President-Spectrum Policy Robert Weller. He said broadcasters could collect federal dollars for being a backup system for GPS. BPS eventually could also lend itself to consumer-facing applications, Weller said.

The system would require 3.0 broadcasts to cover much of the country, so the 3.0 transition would have to progress to make it viable. However, with broadcasters converting to 3.0 anyway and already having infrastructure in place, the proposal is superior to other concepts for a GPS backup, Diamond said. None of this has to be invented, Diamond said: “And that is beautiful. It exists, all of the technology that we need to implement a system and deploy.”

The method for calculating the timing does require more refining and other work, Corl said. Additionally, for the system to function, a certain number of broadcasters would need to install cesium atomic clocks in their stations for calibration, Weller said. Those clocks can cost around $80,000 each. Diamond said the government would likely offset such costs. “There's already a relationship between the broadcasting industry and the U.S. government for critical activities” such as the emergency alert system, he said.