The writer is contributing editor to our sister publication TV Tech.
Several presentations in the Broadcast Engineering & IT Conference of the NAB Show this month focus on the Broadcast Positioning System.
While not of direct relevance in radio, the initiative is a big priority of the National Association of Broadcasters right now. NAB believes that with GPS increasingly recognized as a potential single point of failure for the delivery of data critical to national security, BPS has an important role to play.
Sam Matheny is executive vice president for BPS. This is excerpted from our sister publication TV Tech.
Credit: NAB
TV Tech: The NAB in December realigned its technology leadership to advance the development and deployment of BPS, including putting you in this new role. Why?
[Related: “NAB’s Matheny, Mondal to Lead BPS Development”]
Sam Matheny: NAB made this move to accelerate development of BPS and to put dedicated senior leadership behind an initiative that has clear public safety, critical infrastructure and national security implications. BPS has progressed from concept and early demonstrations into a phase where sustained focus, coordination and execution matter. This realignment allows NAB to concentrate technical leadership on advancing BPS while continuing to support broadcasters as they deploy and invest in NextGen TV infrastructure.
TVT: Last year, the Department of Transportation awarded a $744,000 contract to NAB to move forward with BPS field testing. How has that factored in?
Matheny: The DOT award in August was another validation that BPS is aligned with broader federal efforts to strengthen resilience for position, navigation and timing services. It signaled the continued shift from discussion to real-world evaluation, but importantly, it was part of a larger series of events.
In January of 2025, BPS’s time transfer stability was declared “comparable to or better than GNSS,” the Global Navigation Satellite System, and a “viable complementary PNT [Positioning, Navigation and Timing] solution” by scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in a peer-reviewed paper presented at the Institute of Navigation International Technical Meeting.
These events, coupled with other indicators, helped drive NAB’s decision to align leadership around BPS so the organization can support field testing, data collection and engagement with government and industry partners in a more focused and sustained way.
TVT: For readers who aren’t familiar, briefly bring them up to speed.
Matheny: BPS, a technology invented and developed by NAB, uses NextGen TV broadcast signals to deliver resilient, terrestrial-based timing and location services. One can think of BPS as the terrestrial equivalent of GPS. It is designed to complement GPS. It can provide a backup when satellite signals are disrupted, jammed or spoofed, but it can also be integrated to work with GPS as a hybrid solution.
Because BPS leverages high-power broadcast infrastructure that already exists across the country, it has the potential to scale nationally and provide a reliable layer of resilience for public safety, critical infrastructure and other essential services. Other nations that are deploying ATSC 3.0 have also expressed interest in BPS.
TVT: Tell us about the testing funded by the DOT contract.
Matheny: The field trial is focused on evaluating BPS performance in real-world environments rather than controlled demonstrations. The work is intended to assess how BPS can support critical infrastructure operations when GPS is unavailable or degraded, as well as how the system performs in terms of reliability, coverage and operational integration. NAB has partnered with Dominion Energy with a focus on energy grid resiliency. This testing is a key step in understanding how BPS could function at scale.
TVT: Can you tell us about partnering with Dominion Energy and the broader role of BPS for U.S. industry?
Matheny: Electric utilities rely heavily on precise timing to operate safely, manage load and maintain grid stability. Power enters the grid from multiple sources and has to be time-aligned for effective distribution. Precision time also plays a huge role in fault detection and helps grid operators identify and fix problems quickly should they occur. Partnering with Dominion Energy allows NAB to evaluate how BPS could help sustain timing and synchronization for electric grid operations during GPS disruptions. More broadly, BPS is being evaluated as a terrestrial complement to GPS that could support a wide range of industries that depend on precise timing, including energy, cellular communications, data centers, financial systems and transportation, where even short disruptions can have significant consequences.
TVT: Is BPS the killer app for ATSC 3.0 that could accelerate deployment by giving the government a national security incentive?
Matheny: BPS is a strong example of how NextGen TV infrastructure can enable services that go well beyond video and entertainment. While ATSC 3.0 supports many new consumer and business applications, the ability to deliver GPS-level resilient timing and positioning highlights its potential role in public safety and national resilience. That broader value proposition reinforces the importance of completing the transition to NextGen TV and ensuring the underlying broadcast infrastructure is fully deployed nationwide.
TVT: Is precise timing or precise positioning the initial priority for BPS?
Matheny: The near-term priority is accurate, traceable time delivery. Many critical infrastructure systems depend on accurate timing to function properly, and timing disruptions can cascade quickly across networks and services. A 2019 study by NIST estimated the economic impact of a loss of GPS at $1 billion per day. BPS is designed to provide resilient timing as a foundational capability, while positioning and additional services will continue to be developed and refined over time.
TVT: Some have expressed concerns about the geographic distance between towers affecting positioning.
Matheny: A minimum of three geographically diverse transmissions is needed to perform the multilateration required to determine location, with more towers being better and providing greater accuracy. Our analysis estimates that a typical (median) location in the contiguous U.S., BPS signals from 17 NextGen TV stations might be received at 1.5-meter antenna height. This analysis excluded stations within a kilometer of one another and used only the highest-power station from each cluster of stations. So we believe that BPS can provide a useful service for position and navigation.
We’re also excited that professors and graduate students at the University of Alabama have begun studying the position and navigation possibilities of BPS and will present early findings at the Workshop on Synchronization and Timing in May.
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