A Critical Spectrum Threat: What Louisiana’s Life Safety & Property Protection Industry Needs to Know About the NextNav Proposal

Last week, LLSSA leadership was alerted to a rapidly developing national issue that could directly affect alarm companies, integrators, monitoring centers, manufacturers, and the customers we protect across Louisiana. Leigh McGuire from The Monitoring Association (TMA) contacted us regarding a major FCC proposal involving the Lower 900 MHz band, a spectrum widely used by alarm systems, life-safety devices, and Z-Wave technology. 

The FCC is considering a rule change that would remove long-standing non-interference protections for this spectrum. In their place, the Commission is exploring whether to grant NextNav permission to use nearly 60% of the Lower 900 MHz band to support 5G-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) services. NextNav argues that this expanded access is necessary for improved indoor location accuracy — particularly in dense, multi-level structures where public safety responders need better vertical positioning tools.

However, the engineering reality tells a different story.

According to the industry alert and the technical analysis summarized in the attachment General_NextNav Call to Action — along with a full research study conducted by the Security Industry Association (SIA) — the proposed rule change could overlap, interfere with, and ultimately overwhelm the low-power channels used by tens of millions of devices nationwide. This includes wireless burglary and fire alarm sensors, smoke and CO detectors, wireless keypads, panic buttons, PERS devices, access control components, and the entire ecosystem of Z-Wave automation peripherals. These systems rely on clean, interference-free communication to function correctly.

If high-power 5G activity is permitted inside this band, these life-safety and security devices may fail, lock up, or be forced off the spectrum entirely. The consequences for our industry — and more importantly, for the public — would be staggering. Replacing millions of impacted devices would cost billions, overwhelm technicians, strain already fragile supply chains, and create a nationwide service disruption larger than any previous technology “sunset.” As noted in the alert, this is not another 3G sunset… yet — but all the warning signs are here.

For Louisiana companies, the stakes are especially high. With our state’s combination of dense urban centers, petrochemical facilities, rural markets, and aging buildings, wireless alarm communication remains essential to fire and life-safety protection. Equipment instability or mass device failures would put customers, first responders, and businesses at unacceptable risk.

Now is the time for Louisiana’s alarm and life-safety professionals to act.
The FCC is actively seeking public comment from those who will be directly affected. Local companies, monitoring centers, integrators, and service technicians have real-world insight into how interference would impact essential systems — and the FCC needs to hear those voices. Even a short statement describing how many systems you service, how critical these wireless channels are, or what a forced nationwide replacement would mean for your customers can make a measurable difference.

You can submit comments directly to the FCC at: https://www.fcc.gov/ecfs/filings/standard?proceeding[name]=24-240

In addition, LLSSA encourages members to stay engaged with TMA, SIA, NESA, and AICC as this develops. These groups are coordinating engineering studies, legal advocacy, and industry-wide responses to ensure our concerns are heard clearly and forcefully in Washington. If you want deeper technical detail or wish to support the ongoing national response effort, the attached industry alert includes contact information for joining AICC discussions and contributing to the advocacy fund.

The threat is real, but so is our opportunity to stop it — before it becomes a nationwide crisis. Louisiana’s life safety and property protection industry has a strong, unified voice. Now is the time to use it.