LightSquared Threatens Legal Action against FCC

Flying Magazine ^ | 10/7/11 | Pope

[pabianice]

LightSquared is threatening legal action against the Federal Communications Commission if the agency does not grant the company approval to build a planned nationwide network of around 40,000 broadband towers that many experts warn will cause interference with GPS receivers.

LightSquared argues that any interference with high-precision GPS receivers from the company’s planned network is a result of GPS receivers “looking” for signals in the adjacent frequency band. In a letter to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski, the company argues that GPS manufacturers have ignored standards developed by the Defense Department to block reception of transmissions from nearby bands.

A spokesman said LightSquared has tried to conduct itself as a “good neighbor” to GPS receiver manufacturers and users, but nonetheless is prepared to take legal action if the FCC does not approve the company’s network after additional testing is completed. LightSquared claims that, according to FCC rules, GPS receivers are not entitled to protection from interference “if they are listening outside their band.”

The Coalition to Save Our GPS, an industry group, is fighting to block construction of LightSquared’s ground network, pointing out that when the company submitted its plan to the FCC, the network was touted as being based almost solely on satellite transmissions, not a large ground network in a band next to that of Global Position System receivers.

[RonF]

Fair enough. If they bought the rights to use a band with power restrictions and intend to violate the restrictions then they should fail.

[pabianice]

Last year, Obama shut-off LORAN, a very good and very inexpensive system for supplying fixes to aircraft, boats, and civilians. Stated purpose: to save $135M over the next four years.” What a liar. To “save” .0000206% of the budget. Right. I and others warned that relying solely upon GPS was a big mistake. Looks like we were right. The FAA is, by the way, wagging its tail for Master Obama and slowly decommissioning existing aircraft navigation based upon NDB/VOR/ILS. This will, of course, make LightSquared’s system the only one available for such navigation — a privately owned company. This scandal makes Gun Walker look small.

[mikey_hates_everything]

If LightSquared is correct about GPS receivers, does their supposed right to that part of the spectrum trump the greater good?

[backwoods-engineer]

As an RF engineer: Lightsquared is correct; GPS receiver designers have left off front-end filters that would remove signals from adjacent frequency bands, because those bands were unpopulated, and because such filters cost money. Once the Fedgov started selling off adjacent spectrum, that assumption no longer held.

However, with millions of GPS receivers in the field that have these problems, the least LightSquared could do is conduct research into techniques (beamforming, DSSS, etc.) that would minimize interference on public highways and near airports.

[Nachum]

Thanks for the headsup Army Air Corps

The list, ping

Let me know if you would like to be on or off the ping list

http://www.nachumlist.com/