Iridium Communications Inc., a leading provider of global voice, data, and PNT satellite services, has announced it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for an award through its Complementary Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (CPNT) Action Plan Rapid Phase Award II to support a broad network deployment of Iridium® PNT services.
Iridium is working with T-Mobile to launch live-site activations across the United States, which deliver state-of-the-art, 5G network-complementary timing synchronisation that further strengthens their network resilience and helps ensure customers enjoy the most reliable experience possible.
As the U.S. government’s civil lead for PNT, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s CPNT Action Plan is designed to evaluate mature, commercially available CPNT technologies to strengthen PNT resilience and enhance the safety of critical infrastructure, such as 5G networks.
Through this contract, T-Mobile will expand its installation of Iridium PNT receivers to 90 additional live 5G network sites in geographically diverse locations.
Iridium PNT will help protect against GPS disruptions that cause downtime and compromise the data integrity and performance of 5G networks, which rely on coordinated, precise timing to deliver the speed, capacity, and reliability end-users need.
“It is essential for the U.S. to strengthen the resilience of our 5G wireless networks and other critical infrastructure that relies on PNT,” said Dr Michael O’Connor, executive vice-president, PNT, Iridium. “Our partnership with an industry-leading company like T-Mobile underscores the proven performance of our solution and reinforces why it’s the gold standard for PNT services like timing synchronisation.”
T-Mobile will also perform nominal and adverse user equipment exercises at its testing range. The indoor location, with its necessary wireless infrastructure, provides an ideal setting for DOT, Iridium, and T-Mobile to observe and record results.
Capable of sub-100-nanosecond accuracy, better than a millionth of a second, and secured using cryptographic techniques, Iridium PNT signals are 1,000 times stronger than GNSS systems like GPS and work inside buildings with no need for an outdoor antenna.
The service is delivered by Iridium’s low-Earth-orbit satellite constellation, which provides truly global, weather-resilient L-band connectivity.
