Powerful, targeted jamming caused a temporary blackout of satellite navigation systems, including GPS and BeiDou, in a major Chinese city on Wednesday, an industry association said on Friday.
The disruption affected users in Nanjing, a city of nearly 10 million people and capital of the eastern province of Jiangsu, between 4pm and 10pm on Wednesday. Car navigation, food delivery, ride-hailing, and drone control apps relying on satellite positioning experienced a “systemic anomaly” during the period.
Users reported severe position drifting and total loss of road data, affecting daily life and the economy. The disruption paralysed location-dependent services, causing ride-hailing orders to plummet by 60 per cent and delivery efficiency to drop by 40 per cent, while bike-sharing systems reported location errors of up to 57km (35 miles), according to local media.
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The incident was caused by “temporary interference and suppression” of global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals, rather than mobile network failures, according to a technical analysis by the Nanjing Satellite Application Industry Association.
“The interference specifically targeted the civilian frequency bands of both BeiDou and GPS, preventing receivers from correctly identifying positioning signals,” the association said on social media.
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“Consequently, effective navigation was impossible. Even devices equipped with offline maps suffered from location drift and a complete lack of data feedback due to the absence of a valid positioning source.”