A. Aviation receivers operating as far as 7.5 miles from LightSquared transmitters completely lost GPS and were degraded out to distances of more than 16.5 miles. For two representative receivers tested by the FAA, results also showed GPS would be completely unusable for an aircraft 500 feet above the ground in an area spanning Stafford, Virginia through Washington and Baltimore, and out to Frederick, Maryland.
B. High precision GPS receivers such as those used for surveying and geological study requiring precise measurements were adversely affected out to 213 miles and totally lost GPS out to 4.8 miles.
C. Based on testing performed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a class of receivers used in space to conduct certain types of atmospheric measurements would be unusable up to 12% of the time while in their typical orbits.
D. The State of New Mexico E-911 Program Director, who sent several GPS-equipped emergency and police vehicles to the test, stated in a letter to AFSPC that their equipment showed “the LightSquared network will cause interference to GPS signals and jeopardize 911 and public safety.”
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GPS receivers were quite purposefully designed to operate in a portion of the radio frequency spectrum deliberately maintained as a “quiet neighborhood,” with neighboring frequencies primarily occupied by signals of comparable power levels, all based on the widely accepted understanding of previous FCC rules and intent. The proposed LightSquared transmitters will produce received signal strengths five billion times stronger than the GPS received signal.
From the conclusions:
Empirical test results indicate the originally planned LightSquared network does not preserve existing GPS service in representative environments for most users.
This group must be stopped before they destroy the technological benefits brought by GPS systems. Many of us use it in our everyday occupations and new uses are coming online (e.g. positive train control to prevent collisions like the 2008 one in California between a passenger train and a freight on the same track that killed 28). Obama's lackeys don't seem to give a damn as long as their campaign contributors are protected at the expense of the greater population.
I fear we have become to reliant on GPS. They can be jammed, and we use them to fly and navigate.
Just think of the security implications to this story.
Wouldn’t surprise me that Dems are backing their own favorite telcoms. In the long run though it sounds like the GPS system is going to need to be hardened in a number of ways before wireless technology gets even more popular than it is. I doubt that means more satellites, as they’re probably the most expensive part of the system.
...but don’t count on the FCC, despite all of their activism, to help matters very much.