NextNav Suggests CalChiefs Was Misinformed By Interest Groups
CalChiefs and nonprofit Wi-Fi Alliance oppose NextNav's GPS project, citing public safety concerns.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 27, 2026 – Geolocation company NextNav said it was disappointed by California Fire Chiefs Association’s decision to pull its support, claiming the association was “misinformed by special interest groups.”
Ed Mortimer, NextNav’s vice president of government affairs, published a statement Feb. 18 in response to CalChief’s decision, highlighting NextNav’s continuous goal of improving safety through geolocation solutions for first responders.
In December 2025, the Federal Communications Commission granted NextNav an experimental license for a 5G GPS backup system in San Jose, Calif., that would supplement position, navigation, and timing (PNT) signals. CalChiefs initially strongly supported NextNav’s project due to PNT’s importance in public safety emergencies, but revoked its support about eight months later on Jan. 28, citing concerns about implementation frameworks and long-term safety considerations.
CalChiefs has been one among multiple groups that have opposed NextNav, including nonprofit Wi-Fi Alliance’s skepticism from a technical and ecosystem-wide perspective. Wi-Fi Alliance representatives met with Arpan Sura, senior counsel to FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, on Feb. 12 to discuss risks surrounding NextNav’s proposal to use unlicensed bands. The alliance claimed NextNav’s plans have threatened existing devices and may disrupt industries that depend on low-power, long-range connectivity.
Wi-Fi Alliance is concerned that NextNav is not complying with the FCC’s experimental license terms, which NextNav has also previously denied. NextNav also said CalChiefs was misguided by “special interest groups” that sponsored the “flawed Pericle study, which overstates the possibility of potential 5G impact on unlicensed devices by at least 10,000 times,” Mortimer said in his statement.
The cited study was conducted by engineering firm Pericle Communications Company and sponsored by the Security Industry Association among other groups. It claimed NextNav’s proposal would cause harmful interference that would severely degrade or disable a wide range of unlicensed devices, including public health and safety equipment like medical alerts and emergency response radios.
Mortimer said NextNav’s request to meet with CalChiefs’ leadership was declined. Despite this, he said, “NextNav remains eager to meet with CalChiefs’ leadership to discuss the facts and refocus on our shared responsibility.”
NextNav also announced Friday that Lisa Hook joined the company’s board of directors, effective Feb. 24, 2026. Hook previously served as CEO to Neustar, Inc., a global information services company focused on risk and security analytics, while also having served as a legal advisor at the FCC. She has been connected to emergency communications through her work on the National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee since 2012.
Member discussion