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.
"LightSquared’s suggestion that inquiries from members of Congress about LightSquared’s 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 LightSquared’s 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.
LightSquared admits it interferes with commercial GPS and there's many millions of them out there and says tough, it's their problem. They have a surprise coming, it's their problem.
Had Gen. William L. Shelton, Commander, Air Force Space Command, not spoken out IightSquared would probably have gotten away with this scam.
If LightSquared was harmless to GPS there would be no controversy and the GPS-related industries would have no reason to complain. Companies do not hire lawyers and scream to the high Heavens about things that do not concern them.
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.
In fact, just about every GPS is used for precision position finding from time to time. For example, GPS is constantly used by all sailors when they are in narrow channels, and a sudded LightSquared-caused course deviation is likely, at least, to cause hordes of groundings and collisions. Just read the AF general's testimony about the massive GPS disruption this will cause, as determined by the AF tests. This monstrosity must be stopped.
I am torn on this issue.
On one hand, it’s disgusting to see the obvious ties to the Obama Administration being used to further LightSquared’s agenda.
But similarly, all GPS receiver manufacturers are suppose to protect their devices from out of band interference.
And since LightSquared payed for the spectrum they want to use, I don’t see how it is fair to LS to keep them from using properly licensed spectrum.
If we were a true capitalist society, the GPS manufacturers would have to take a hike on this one, IMO.
As for consumers who would be shafted by this approach, I think it would be a case of “too bad”. Either you would have to cross your fingers that your manufacturer would support your device, or just admit you didn’t know enough about the complexity and limitations of the device you bought.
Where's the rest of the money trail to the pols? Contributions of $10,000-$100,000 are nothing on the scale of this enterprise. It's like offering a crooked cop $1.98 to fix a speeding ticket.
Also, I will admit that I own a number of GPS devices, but luckily none installed in a vehicle.
I would have thought the manufacturers would have designed in the correct band pass filters, rather than praying that valuable spectrum around the GPS band would never be sold.
The FCC is also at fault here. They, knowing that a high bandwidth radio network would be installed on nearby spectrum, just figured it was OK to sell LS the spectrum they wanted, without checking to see if a critical national service very nearby would be affected or not.
The licensing applications submitted to the FCC by LightSquared were fast tracked and much testing was passed up.
That's when Gen. Shelton stepped up because of the Air Force testing and told a Congressional Committee what they had discovered. He had been approached by WH staff to alter his upcoming testimony and he told them to get lost.
I'm no electronics person but I've read that the GPS band is susceptible to interference and everyone knows it. The band has been kept as it is because of accuracy. It seems the FCC was going to license LightSquared kind of under the table. I don't know if I got all that right but there's been many articles posted here at FR regarding it.
LS has been very devious about this. They bought a company that owned satellite frequencies close to GPS and in a band intended for satellite transmission only . The satellite signals were not strong enough to use with th eLS ground recievers so LS asked for a wavier to “agument” the satellite signals with ground based repeaters/transmitters. The problem is having those ground based transmitters blasting high powered signals in a frequency area used by ground based receivers designed for satellite signals, NOT high powered ground based signals. It’s not a simple matter of filtering, it would be like listening to a wisper (GPS) in one ear when someone’s (LS ground based repeaters) screaming in the other.
The FCC should not have granted LS the waiver to operate high powered ground based repeaters in a frequency range that’s always been used for satellite transmissions.
Exactly. Their donations were chump change compared to what they stand to make off of this. And there’s not much doubt the FCC tried to fast track the licensing for LightSquared.
Who sold the frequencies that close together? The intent was most likely known. This problem will only get worse if we can’t fix it here.
Thanks. That’s what I’d read but couldn’t remember it.
Check post #8, it explains it well.
The frequencies owned by the company LS bought were never intended to be used by ground based transmitters. That’s why LS had to ask for a waiver to use ground based retransmitters.
The FCC screwed up big time by granting the waiver. How coudl have prior users like GPS known the FCC would do that sometime in the future?
Like someone said, this administration is so bad even their corruption is incompetent.
And for those that don't know, it was the MILITARY that brought the world GPS.
Clinton was the first Rat with his snout in the cheese - he gave away the military control on GPS accuracy, and later, frequency control.
It was a payoff to donors who wanted to piggy back on what the DoD funded and implemented.
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