Federal Communications Commission	"FCC  XX-XXX"


STATEMENT OF
COMMISSIONER JESSICA ROSENWORCEL
Re: 	Waiver of Part 25 Licensing Requirements for Receive-Only Earth Stations Operating with the Galileo Radionavigation-Satellite Service, IB Docket No. 17-16.

Location, location, location.  If you ever seek to buy a home or rent a place to live, you’ll hear that mantra again and again.  But the wireless era can also lay claim to being all about location.  That’s because we now depend on wireless location services for so much of modern life.  The evidence is all around us.  We rely on the Global Positioning System, or GPS, to navigate our roadways, track our misplaced devices, and check in on social media.  We count on GPS to support bank transactions, shipping systems, and the national power grid.  Our military depends on it for everything from search-and-rescue missions to missile strikes.  

Simply put, GPS is a critical part of our national and economic security.  That’s why in this decision the Federal Communications Commission chooses to augment our GPS system by giving the okay for consumers and businesses in the United States to use the European global navigation satellite system, known as Galileo.  As a result, location services in this country will be more available, more accurate, and more resilient.  That means safer and more efficient transportation systems, improved emergency response capabilities, more secure financial operations, and improved critical infrastructure.  That’s good stuff—and it deserves this agency’s support.

But today’s action also shines a light on an uncomfortable truth.  While our rules require wireless devices in the United States to have a license—like the one we grant here—before operating with foreign satellites, the reality is more complicated.  Go ahead, pull out your phone.  Now look up the device specifications for it online.  There’s a very good chance that it is already capable of receiving not just the European signals we give the go ahead for today, but also Russian and Chinese signals, too.  That’s because our phones are built to be used anywhere in the world—not just the United States.  So they include chips that are designed to operate with global navigation satellite systems of other countries.  

If you read the record in this proceeding and others like it, it becomes clear that many devices in the United States are already operating with foreign signals.  But nowhere in our record is there a good picture of how many devices in this country are interacting with these foreign satellite systems, what it means for compliance with our rules, and what it means for the security of our systems.  We should change that.  Technology has gotten ahead of our approval policies and it’s time for a true-up.

Back to the here and now.  I support today’s decision because it complies with our existing policies, but on location matters we have more work to do.


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