Niantic has been updating and tweaking a lot. From the 2018 new loading screen to recent Egg Hatching event to bringing Kyogre closer, and making it easier to catch. It has been fun all the way for Pokémon Go players. Unfortunately, there is bad news for Pokémon Go players living in some parts of the United States. This is going to be the biggest downtime of the game.

Government gives US Air Force permission to shut down GPS

The United States Government has given the US Air Force full permission to disable GPS, in order to carry out their annual war game event.

This year’s “Red Flag” event, is so far the largest ever version of the US Air Force aerial war games. The reason for the GPS shut down is to test how pilots and their crews will react when they do not have advanced technology to depend on.

Though the Air Force did not specify the areas that will experience the outage, they provided a list of airports that could be affected. They include Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, Salt Lake, Oakland, and Seattle. This means that possibly parts of Nevada, California, Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Utah, Arizona, Oregon, Montana and some others will be affected. The Red Flag event will run until mid-February, hopefully, February 16th.

The effect of the GPS shut down on Pokémon Go Players

Pokémon Go players in some parts of the United States will experience spotty service as a result of this shutdown. This means that players who rely on GPS in order to play the game will have spotty service till Mid-February. Therefore, before you start complaining too loudly, about the inconsistent service to any of your service providers or even Niantic, kindly know that there is nothing they can do about it since GPS is one of the government services, and they have the right to shut it down.

Although GPS use is free for those with GPS receiver, which of course is a great advantage, the disadvantage is that they have to live with any shutdown based on the government’s decision or desire.

Alternatively, Pokémon Go players can head to a Wi-Fi spot and connect from there. At least this should help guarantee service while playing at a fixed location like a gym but definitely might not help while playing in parks.

The game should be fully functional in these areas before the start of the next Community Day event on February 24th. Uber, emergency service, and other things that require GPS will also be affected by the GPS shutdown.