FCC Approves Use of European Navigation System Galileo in US

The FCC has approved the use of signals from the European satellite navigation system Galileo in the United States. The application for approval has been with the FCC since 2015, but a request from a company was thwarted.

In practice, many American smartphones already use Galileo, in addition to the American GPS, and federal governments could also use it without FCC permission. Now that that permission is in place, services such as providers can use it to locate 911 emergency callers. The use of non-GPS systems for such purposes was not yet allowed, Inside GNSS writes.

“Opening up the use of Galileo will have a positive impact on many industries, including automotive, aerospace, maritime and agriculture,” said FCC Chairman Ajit Pai. Also Elżbieta Bieńkowska, European Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, showed positive. “Galileo already has 400 million users worldwide and is now open to US citizens and businesses.”

The authorization was delayed because the US satellite navigation provider Ligado Networks wanted to use frequencies that were against those of Galileo, with possible disruption as a result. However, Galileo’s signals fall within the frequency band reserved for rnss, or radio navigation satellite service.

The FCC notes in announcing the approval that GPS and Galileo are interoperable and use the same RNSs bands. This concerns the Galileo E1 signals between 1559MHz and 1591MHz and the E5 signals between 1164MHZ and 1219MHz. The permission therefore does not apply to the Galileo E6 signals that run over the frequency band from 1260MHz to 1300MHz, as GPS does not use these either.