Posted on 10/12/2011 3:14:44 PM PDT by jazusamo
Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's vice president of regulatory affairs and public policy, accused the Global Positioning System (GPS) industry of trying to manufacture a political scandal to discredit his wireless company on Wednesday.
"[GPS companies] have completely mischaracterized the political donations [LightSquared investor] Phil Falcone and our CEO [Sanjiv Ahuja] have made," Carlisle said after a House Small Business Committee hearing.
When asked whether he believes the GPS industry has pushed negative political stories about LightSquared, Carlisle said, "There's no doubt in my mind. Of course they have. It's not like this stuff just shows up for no reason whatsoever."
Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Michael Turner (R-Ohio), have called for an investigation of LightSquared's ties to the White House and the Federal Communications Commission to determine whether the company has been given preferential treatment as it seeks regulatory approval.
And Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, who's running as a candidate in the GOP presidential primary, accused the president of "crony capitalism" for his alleged ties to the wireless company.
According to a report, the White House asked an Air Force general last month to change his congressional testimony to make it more supportive of LightSquared.
LightSquared has sent emails to White House aides, at times mentioning its fundraising for Democrats and President Obama. LightSquared's Falcone and Ahuja have both donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republicans and Democrats.
The GPS industry denied coordinating any political campaign against LightSquared.
"LightSquareds suggestion that inquiries from members of Congress about LightSquareds contacts with the Obama administration are orchestrated by the GPS industry are silly and self-serving," a spokeswoman for the Coalition to Save Our GPS said. "These members have raised questions about meetings and contacts that are a matter of public record. The Coalition is focused on the serious interference issues presented by LightSquareds proposals and the need to responsibly address them, which LightSquared has yet to do."
LightSquared plans to launch a wholesale wireless broadband service, but tests earlier this year showed its network interferes with GPS devices. To address the interference issue, LightSquared agreed to operate its cell towers on only the lower 10 MHz of its spectrum.
But even with that commitment, the company acknowledges its network will cause problems for some precision GPS devices, such as those used in agriculture, surveying and construction. LightSquared says it has developed the technology to retrofit precision GPS devices to allow them to function in the presence of the company's signal.
LightSquared has committed to pay up to $50 million to retrofit government receivers, but says fixing commercial receivers is the GPS industry's responsibility.
"[GPS companies] don't want anybody to focus on the real issue: how do you solve the problem and who writes the check?" Carlisle said.
The FCC says it will not allow LightSquared to move forward until it resolves the GPS interference problem. The company's network is currently undergoing another round of testing.
It’s an interesting link no doubt.
LS bought a company called SkyTerra that already owned the satellite frecquencies, read post 18.
But the satellite signals would not work for high speed 3G 4G wireless so they asked the FCC for a waiver to use high powered ground based retransmitters to increase signal strength so they could compete with the likes of Verizon and ATT with a much lower overhead.
Thanks for the summary, I think you explained what is going on here better than most of these “he said/she said” news stories.
The question I would like answered is: Did the Obama administration sell these frequencies to their cronies simply because they didn’t foresee the consequences? Or, were the consequences intended because they align with Obama’s goal of weakening America?
The results may be indistinguishable regardless of whether the cause was corruption, negligence, incompetence, or something more seditious, but that is, I think, the real issue we need to be focusing on: establishing the motives.
I think the term “crony” capitalism fits well, what LS did is certainly not Ayn Rand objectivist capitalism.
Thanks for that link, it’s a great piece by Ken boehm at NLPC, I bookmarked it.
Never read Rand. No need. I’m living it. I would like to know who assigns these spectral areas to emitters.
I’ve watched LightSquared stuff screw up GPS for cars and phones. Not sure about military GPS capability, but messing up millions of drivers who’ve ditched maps for Onstar is not an acceptable trade so that LightSquared can take over some of that bandwidth.
I don’t see how LS paying for something entitles them to that something if it is obtained wrongly. If I went on Craigs List and bought a stolen laptop, I should be able to do anything I want with it, since I paid for it. Screw the poor sucker who had it stolen, they should have kept better care of it. They deserve to lose it, so I am therefore happy to use it as I see fit. It is mine, and posession is 9 10ths of the law.
Problem is, they are trying to commandeer a part of the spectrum used by GPS satellites. GPS satellites are solar powered and 12,000 miles away. They have an output of about fifty watts. A walkie-talkie that kids play with is about 2.5 watts. Having a broadband 4G wireless network operating in the GPS band would be like having a candle in front of a huge spotlight in the middle of the day.
I own 3 GPS devices which I use for hiking. They help me find the way back, to know where I am and how far I traveled, and also to identify landmarks nearby. They cost in the range of 300 to 600 dollars each, plus map software and subscriptions. If LightSquared is allowed to proceed, I personally will be out about 900 dollars. But hey, they own it, and I should have been more careful what I spend my money on.
Unless you own stock in LightSquared, and have divested all your Garmin, you should not be torn.
I totally disagree with you. If they paid, and were properly approved(*), and, and this is the clencher, LS’s equipment’s out of band harmonics are within the specifications set by the FCC for acceptable interference to GPS receivers, then LS has no culpability.
The culpability lies 100% with the GPS manufacturers.
And yes, I still stick by what I say about us the users buying complex devices that we do not understand the complete physics of operation of (I do have a pretty good set of radio knowledge, actually...). And it can be even worse for the GPS manufacturers if they sold their products as “compliant” with being resistant to specific levels of chatter out of neighboring bands. I suspect there is such a compliance statement on record with the FCC. That will be a document referenced when court proceedings begin.
Garmin, et al, should hope they are in the right, and LS’s equipment is generating too much power out of band. Or they could have some serious lawsuits on their hands... everything ranging from defective products to death liability suits from free ranging farm and military equipment.
This is all simple radio stuff a first level technician should know, and if this ends up in the courts, it will be resolved based on clear cut numbers, whether we want our GPS units to break or not. If LS is in the right, then yes, they should have full rights.
Also, several people have said that a bandpass filter won’t fix the problem. But, I must argue, it in fact will fix the problem. These are high order bandpass filters, which should be relatively compact at the frequencies we are talking about here. If the GPS manufacturers have been blowing off the interference tolerance requirements, this is not LS’s problem, and LS shouldn’t even be culpable for modifications to military equipment.
Now, I don’t have any numbers, but they will eventually come out in public, and it will be clear at that point who was skirting compliance issues: LS or the GPS manufacturers.
Additionally, I own stock in no GPS manufacturers, nor LS. I do have GPS receivers that I would love to stay functional, but if LS is in the right, then a class action lawsuit is going to solve the problems with the GPS manufacturers.
Ie., I am not even remotely concerned currently.
Finally, I want to be sure you understand my position. I *want* my GPS units to keep working (I own 2 GPS phones, 3 handheld GPS units, and 1 automotive stick-to-the-windshield unit, given to me as a gift -— about $1400 investment of my own, and $300 of the gift giver).
But this is where liberalism and conservatism diverge. Wants are what leads down the path of bizarre regulations and budget deficits. After all, liberals *want* to help the poor people. They want to eliminate gun violence by taking away our lead launchers. They want lots of things. Social justice, etc.
Only when we sit back and look at the raw facts will this issue be resolved, OR the GPS manufacturers will get the break of a lifetime from government, or LS will be allowed to plow over GPS by exceeding mandated radio emission limits.
I am betting this will not be resolved on facts, and I will bet the lobbyists from both sides are lining up 10 deep on the hill at every door available for both camps.
I just hope no true conservative legislators try to come out on this issue without the raw facts, or they will be looking pretty stupid unless they get lucky.
One more point: if the FCC relaxed standards about crossband interference to let LS play, then YES, that would be crony capitalism.
But if the specifications set by the FCC are not exceeded (or relaxed preferentially), then it’s too bad and so sad for the GPS manufacturers and owners like myself.
Go read post 18. Then go study up on RF.
Very nicely put and not too much off the mark at what LS is trying to do except with the help of Zer0 in the WH LS went to the FCC, the horses mouth so to speak, to get their waiver.
You bore with that spin story you pointed me too. 5 months vs. 6 months? Come’on. That’s just a ridiculous complaint.
There was absolutely no technical data as to how LS was causing more than allowed interference in a adjacent band.
If there are no FCC rules regarding how much interference GPS must accept, then that is more incompetent government bureaucracy at work for us. I still say that government failed again, and the GPS manufacturers failed too, because they didn’t go into the game without FCC rules protecting their spectrum.
Pants down moment for government and their cronies at the GPS manufacturers, that a different part of government and their cronies were able to take advantage of.
And how did that story indicate some gap in my knowledge about RF? If two radios are not on the same frequency, the FCC is supposed to regulate how much interference a transmitter in one band can produce to another. Failure of the government allowed someone else Coupe de Tat on the GPS spectrum.
Now, I give you a real world example:
In radio repeaters/multiplexers used by EMS, etc., usually transmit and receive on the same antenna, and even better, just a few 100Khz apart. A simple multi order filter array keeps the receiver from hearing the transmitter.
Such filters are small at the GPS frequency range.
It’s totally ridiculous that the FCC did not regulate the amount of interference, and I think Falcone just may be brilliant for realizing it. If that is what happened...
So?
100W’s into a diplexer won’t open the squelch on a radio connected on the other side of the diplexer.
A diplexer is just a fancy name for a very tight bandpass filter (multi order).
You seem to agree, indirectly, that the government is responsible either way. The GPS manufacturers should have been pushing for interference guidelines from the git-go.
Who knows, maybe the GPS manufacturers weren’t cronies, but they should have been early on. Maybe they figured the military would protect them? That is some form of cronyism itself.... Good luck with that -— that’s like assuming no Democrat President or Congress would ever be elected.
Anyhow, I seriously doubt LS ground based transmitters are 500W. I don’t know of any uwave transmitters in that power range, except radar. And even then, proper filtering can still compensate (though the size of the GPS receiver could be larger).
The GPS manufacturers should have lobbied FCC for very specific band protection, or if they failed, installed the correct filters. Unless they really expected the military to shield them from business harm, I just can’t see their reasoning. At all.
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