The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has launched Merkhet Solutions, an independent company focused on the commercial deployment of the Broadcast Positioning System (BPS).
BPS, first conceived by the technology team at NAB in 2021, is a patented terrestrial, GPS-independent timing and positioning technology that leverages the high-power, geographically diverse broadcast infrastructure already covering the United States.
BPS has been designed to address the more than $1 billion-per-day economic and national security risk posed by overreliance on GPS. Merkhet Solutions is engaging across critical infrastructure sectors, including energy, data centers, telecommunications and financial services – where a loss of precision time can trigger grid instability, outages and lost trades.
“BPS represents a powerful intersection of innovation, public safety and opportunity for broadcasters,” said NAB President and CEO Curtis LeGeyt. “Launching Merkhet Solutions is the next step in commercializing this technology and ensuring it reaches the critical-infrastructure operators who need it most, while continuing to create meaningful long-term opportunities for local stations.”
“BPS solves a problem we can no longer afford to ignore: an entire economy and national security posture resting on a single, contested signal from space,” said Merkhet Solutions CEO Sam Matheny. “We built BPS at NAB because broadcast infrastructure is uniquely suited to deliver assured terrestrial timing at scale. We’re launching Merkhet Solutions because the time to operationalize this technology is now.”
Under Matheny’s leadership at NAB, BPS has advanced rapidly from research concept to real-world deployment. NAB demonstrated the first BPS prototype to the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) in 2022, followed by the first live broadcast demonstration in 2023.
In 2024, NAB entered into a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Nexstar Media Group. In 2025, NIST concluded in a peer-reviewed paper presented at the Institute of Navigation International Technical Meeting that BPS was “comparable to or better than GNSS” for time transfer stability and a “viable complementary PNT solution.”
Later that year, the U.S. DOT awarded NAB a contract to deploy a BPS field trial with critical-infrastructure partner Dominion Energy.
BPS is designed as a terrestrial complement to GPS, providing operators with an additional resilient source of timing and positioning that can be used alongside GPS or relied upon when satellite-based services are disrupted by jamming, spoofing, cyberattacks or natural events. The need for terrestrial complements to GPS has been recognized by the U.S. government through the National Timing Resilience and Security Act and Executive Order 13905.
More than 20 years ago, in these pages, we referred to television broadcast signals as “signals of opportunity” that might be used for positioning, navigation and timing (PNT). Since then, several other signals with a different primary purpose have also been considered as sources of PNT, and some have been used routinely for years now, such as WiFi routers for indoor navigation. On Feb. 26, 2025, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) filed a petition for rulemaking with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for television to transition to a new standard, ATSC 3.0, that enables what they call Broadcast Positioning System (BPS), as a way to enhance GPS resiliency. I asked NAB’s chief technology officer and executive vice president, Sam Matheny, to answer a few questions about the organization’s proposal. In next month’s issue, we will present a different perspective on it.
Question: Briefly, what is the history of the relevant standards?
Answer: The Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) is an international standards development organization. ATSC developed ATSC 3.0 as the “next-gen” standard, and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) adopted it as a recommended digital broadcast standard in 2020. Broadcasters in the United States began experimental ATSC 3.0 transmissions in 2016, and there are currently more than 100 transmitters broadcasting in 80 markets. Other nations currently using or considering ATSC 3.0 include Brazil, India, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. NAB’s petition to the FCC requests permission to fully transition to ATSC 3.0 by 2030.
Q: Briefly, what is the history of the BPS project/proposal?
A: BPS is a datacast application that uses ATSC 3.0. We at NAB authored a seminal paper on BPS in 2021 and built our first prototype in 2022. We put our second prototype on the air in 2023. We signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in 2024 and published our first joint paper earlier this year. The paper concludes that “the stability of BPS time transfer is comparable to or better than GNSS, making BPS a viable complementary PNT solution when GNSS is unavailable.”
Our petition to the FCC highlights a transition to ATSC 3.0 that enables the nationwide deployment of BPS.
BPS time is comparable to dual band GPS (L1/L2) time. The data are recorded as 10-minute averages. (Graphic: National Association of Broadcasters)
Q: What is the motivation for broadcasters to implement BPS? What’s in it for them?
A: BPS will further secure television broadcasters’ role in the fabric of U.S. telecommunications. We also witnessed the innovation around GPS, with more than 7 billion GPS receivers being built into myriad devices. We’d like to see BPS experience similar innovation, which will bring new business opportunities. We believe that there is an opportunity for a public-private partnership with the government to deploy BPS for economic and national security.
Q: What have your tests so far shown regarding the timing accuracy of your signals? How much more R&D is required?
A: We’ve completed a wide variety of testing over the years, but probably of most interest is the work done with NIST. They ran common-view experiments using the BPS signal transmitted from KWGN, a TV station in Denver. Receivers were placed at two different facilities equipped with NIST timescale. Their Boulder facility is 30 km away with non-line-of-sight (NLOS) propagation, and their Fort Collins facility is 106 km away with line-of-sight propagation. A 21-day-long test showed that the time deviation (TDEV) statistics were better than 2 ns for all intervals. NIST also tested the stability of the NLOS signal alone at the Boulder facility and found that the TDEV statistics were better than 3 ns.
Q: How can BPS help improve GNSS resilience and integrity?
A: BPS functions completely independent of GNSS, so in the event of an acute GNSS disruption or catastrophic outage, BPS can be a resilient secondary source of timing for critical infrastructure (CI). Integrating BPS into CI applications also makes GPS a less attractive target for intentional disruption. Additionally, being independent means that BPS and GPS can work together in a hybrid mode, where, for example, BPS can help detect jamming and spoofing of GPS.
Time deviation (TDEV) statistics of BPS is less than 3 ns, even for the NLOS test scenario. (Graphic: National Association of Broadcasters))
Q: What are the main benefits of BPS?
A: The key benefits of BPS include:
Existing infrastructure: BPS leverages existing television transmission infrastructure making it low cost and easy to deploy. There are more than 1,700 full power TV stations on the air today. These stations, considered critical infrastructure, are designed to stay on the air on a 24 x 7 x 365 basis, including during emergencies.
Nationwide coverage: Television transmissions are “high-power/high-tower” signals that provide nationwide coverage. Their broadcast power can be up to 1 MW and from towers up to 2,000 feet tall. The signals can be received NLOS, including indoors. The strength of these signals makes them difficult to jam or spoof.
Frequency diversity: Television in the United States operates on 210 MHz of licensed spectrum divided into 35 6-MHz channels. There are multiple stations/channels in each market, which offer geographic diversity along with frequency diversity.
Passive receivers: BPS is a broadcast service, just like GPS, and supports an unlimited number of simultaneous users with no bottlenecks or two-way connectivity dependencies.
Standards-based: BPS is based on ATSC 3.0, an ITU-recommended digital terrestrial broadcast standard with the support of a global community and supply chain.
Independent: BPS operates completely independent of GNSS and is a self-synchronizing network that does not rely on Internet or cellular connectivity.
BPS Installation at WHUT. TV transmission infrastructure is already built out. Only a BPS synchronizer and a reference timing source need to be added. (Graphic: National Association of Broadcasters))
Q: What are the main initial use cases? What are some additional ones that might come later?
A: The initial use case is providing resilient time to CI, which includes the power grid, cellular communications, and financial and data centers. A 2019 NIST study estimated the economic risk of losing GPS at $1 billion a day, and in 2024 a National Security Space Association study said the impact of a disruption or loss would be incalculable, so addressing this CI need is vital. Longer term, we see hybrid applications where BPS and GPS are used together. BPS can be leveraged for GPS health monitoring, which could be especially useful for transportation systems and can help identify and mitigate compromised GPS service. Going further, we see applications for positioning and navigation, plus other data services such as AGPS, GPS validation and RTK.
Q: How will the BPS service be monitored after full deployment?
A: NAB has developed a cloud-based network operations center (NOC) to monitor the health of the BPS-enabled TV stations. As part of our leader-follower construct, TV stations in the BPS mesh network measure each other’s emissions and send the data to the NOC, which can identify any issues.
Q: Which television manufacturers have expressed interest so far?
A: Hisense, LG, Panasonic, Samsung, Sony and TCL are already selling NEXTGEN TV sets. It is important to note that these televisions don’t use BPS. They ignore the BPS data and pay attention to the audio and video payload. The reverse is true for a BPS receiver; it ignores the audio and video and simply uses the BPS data. Both services rely on ATSC 3.0, but they use different parts of the signal.
BPS leader-follower mesh network example. WHUT is configured as a leader tower, and WNUV is set up as a follower tower deriving traceable time from WHUT’s signal. At full deployment, the remaining 12 towers in the DC-Baltimore area can also follow WHUT. (Graphic: National Association of Broadcasters))
Q: Have you talked to any GNSS receiver manufacturers yet?
A: Yes, we have healthy interest from numerous receiver manufacturers. They see BPS as a nice addition to their product lineups. Conversations have focused on performance and integration.
Q: Are there any technical, commercial or legal arguments against BPS? Do you anticipate resistance to your proposal from any quarters?
A: We have not heard any such arguments against BPS. To the contrary, people have been intrigued and supportive of the concept. Recognizing that BPS requires transition to ATSC 3.0, some groups have expressed concerns over the television set upgrade cost for low-income viewers. However, ATSC 3.0 receiver accessories retail for less than $100 today, and prices will drop further with scale.
Q: How does your proposal address backward compatibility?
A: NAB’s petition calls for all television stations to transition to ATSC 3.0 and for all television sets to be equipped to receive ATSC 3.0. As mentioned earlier, millions of NEXTGEN TV sets are already being purchased, so our petition aligns with natural product replacement cycles, including low-cost converters for older TVs.
Q: What is your arrangement and division of labor with NIST?
A: Our CRADA with NIST also includes Nexstar, one of our members. Nexstar operates KWGN where we deployed BPS. NAB provided NIST with BPS receivers and technical support. NIST scientists then performed independent measurements and analysis of BPS using their own techniques and processes. It has been a great experience for us to engage with and learn from the team at NIST. The effort has taught us a great deal about PNT and the capabilities of BPS.
Q: Now that you have submitted your proposal to the FCC, what do you expect to be the timeline for approval, implementation and adoption?
A: The FCC follows a notice-and-comment process for adopting changes to its rules, which can take anywhere from several months to more than a year. The FCC previously convened the Future of Television Initiative to investigate issues associated with the transition, which should give us a bit of a head start. In NAB’s petition, we ask the FCC to establish a timeline that would have the top 55 television markets fully transitioned to ATSC 3.0 by 2028 and the remaining markets by 2030.
Q: How can the GNSS/PNT community help this project?
A: First, it can support the transition to ATSC 3.0 because BPS relies upon it. We need a full transition to recognize its potential. Next, it can continue to collaborate with us. We introduced BPS at the DOT Roundtable in 2022. Since then, we’ve collaborated with the PNT community on research, scientific papers, product design and deployments. We’ve built BPS together, and now we need to deploy it together.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has issued a Notice of Inquiry (NOI) seeking public input on positioning, navigation and timing (PNT) systems and policies. While GPS is crucial for the United States’ economic and national security, its dependency as a single point of failure renders it vulnerable to disruption or manipulation by adversaries. Recognizing this vulnerability, leaders such as President Trump, Chairman Cruz, and Senator Markey have advocated for developing alternative systems to ensure resilient PNT capabilities.
PNT data is integral to countless military, public safety, agricultural, and commercial activities. Given the dependence of the American economy and national security on GPS as the sole PNT source, the agency states that the U.S. government is prioritizing efforts to create robust backup systems that can safeguard essential functions in the event of GPS signal disruptions.
The FCC’s NOI examines how the agency can foster the development of alternative and complementary PNT. It seeks feedback on various emerging PNT technologies being developed by broadcasters, wireless operators, satellite constellations and startups utilizing FCC-licensed spectrum. The inquiry also addresses tradeoffs among these technologies based on performance, scalability, geographic coverage, durability, cost and commercialization potential.
The Commission aims to establish a comprehensive record to guide its actions in enhancing GPS resilience and promoting alternative PNT solutions. Potential measures include regulatory changes, public-private partnerships, testbeds, Innovation Zones and other initiatives.
Two PNT-related petitions are currently under FCC consideration. NextNav has proposed allocating approximately $5 billion worth of spectrum to collaborate with telecom providers in establishing a PNT network. Meanwhile, the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has suggested adopting a new TV signal format capable of transmitting PNT information without requesting additional spectrum allocation. Insights from the NOI will help inform decisions on these proposals.
The FCC’s inquiry reflects growing concerns about reliance on GPS as a single system for PNT data. By fostering alternatives like terrestrial networks or broadcast-based solutions such as NAB’s Broadcast Positioning System, the Commission seeks to strengthen national resilience against potential disruptions to critical infrastructure and services.
Full-power UHF TV stations in view in the continental United States: yellow (1—3 stations), green (4—6), red (7—10), orange (11 or more). (Image: NAB)
Over the years, we have seen several proposals to use television broadcasts for positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT). This idea was taken one step further in a paper by the staff of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB). We talked with one of the authors, Robert Weller, NAB’s vice president for spectrum policy, to find out more.
Goward. Bob, your paper calls the notional system the “Broadcast Positioning System” or “BPS.” What is new about your proposal? And what led you and your colleagues to develop this idea and publish the paper?
Weller. Television broadcasters are transitioning to a new transmission standard, ATSC 3.0, that plays well with other industry protocols, has more robust operating points, stricter timing requirements, and is much more flexible. There are already more than 50 US markets with a station transmitting ATSC 3.0. Our paper began to analyze PNT in the context of ATSC 3.0 and confirmed that there was a good match. So, the idea of “broadcast positioning” was born.
Goward. In general, how would BPS work?
Weller. TV stations transmit from towers at known fixed locations. A TV station can transmit its precise location (geographic coordinates and antenna elevation) along with a time-stamp. For fixed receivers using the timing service, only one TV signal is required. Receivers would know their location a priori and would simply calculate their distance from the TV station and use that distance to determine the corresponding time that it takes for the signal to travel from the TV transmitting antenna. That time difference is then added to the received time-stamp to determine the present time at the receiver.
Both fixed and mobile users could access positioning and timing services when at least three TV stations are within range.
Goward. GPS and other GNSS are ubiquitous. What advantages do you see BPS having over space-based navigation systems?
Weller. BPS is not intended to replace GPS. BPS can provide an independent timing and/or position determination, which can provide confidence and help detect spoofing or other problems with GPS. BPS also has the advantage of high power and strong signal levels. Most UHF television stations radiate 1 megawatt of power, which does a good job penetrating buildings and is difficult to jam or spoof.
Goward. There have been many proposals for terrestrial systems to complement GPS. In general, what advantages would implementing BPS have over other non-space approaches?
Weller. There are several advantages. The cost to deploy will be less since the broadcast infrastructure is already in place. Also, because of our high power, the number of nodes necessary is fairly small. I’ll add that TV stations are built to operate 24/7, so most of them are fairly “hard” with back-up power and redundant transmitters. Additionally, the modulation and coding we propose for BPS is intended to provide service well above the noise floor, making it quite robust. Finally, low-cost receivers that are used in televisions can be used to decode the BPS information.
Goward. Your paper says that using the television stations we have today, geographically about 85% of the contiguous United States by land area would be able to get PNT services from BPS. The number is 99% for just timing services. Do you have any thoughts about those not in range for services?
Weller. Those percentages were intended to be conservative and only considered full-power UHF TV stations. There are also hundreds of VHF stations and thousands of low-power TV stations. If you include those stations, the coverage percentages are even higher. It’s certainly possible to add more stations if needed to reach the most remote and unpopulated parts of the United States.
Goward. What about user equipment? Have you done any work in that area? How small do you think receivers could be eventually?
Weller. There are compact GPS and Loran receivers out there, and the technology for BPS isn’t much different. Some Korean companies have already built very small ATSC 3.0 receivers to carry RTK corrections to GPS for use in drones. There are also already ATSC 3.0 USB receivers that weigh less than an ounce.
Goward. Are there other services that BPS could provide?
Weller. BPS can be one element of a PNT system-of-systems that also improves other PNT services. In my opinion, the most valuable service BPS can provide is an alternative reference for critical infrastructure if GPS is compromised. However, BPS would occupy a tiny fraction of ATSC 3.0 signal capacity. So, there could be additional services such as transmitting ephemeris data for expedited GPS acquisition, RTK data for improved PNT accuracy, or even map information.
Goward. Have you thought about what you would be using as a time source?
Weller. Most TV stations already have GPS, but since the point of BPS is to provide redundancy and resilience to GPS, we’re looking at cesium clocks, optical fiber, and eLoran as possibilities.
Goward. NAB is a trade association. How do you see this project benefiting your members?
Weller. This project affirms the public service mission of broadcasters as well as our designation as critical infrastructure. If broadcasters are compensated for the equipment and resources required for deploying and operating BPS as a public service, I expect high participation and user adoption.
Goward. Where do you think you and your colleagues will take the project from here?
Weller. We’re working with possible users to determine their requirements while also trying to identify funding sources to enable the development. We hope to build prototypes and launch market trials as next steps towards commercialization.
