Wow. The one of the few things that most people believe that government regulation can be good for is enforcement of efficient and uniform traffic laws. In the airwaves, that means the FCC limiting interference and allocating bandwidth so that manufacturers can make devices that work with each other.
Letting Light-Squared run roughshod over all of these GPS units is crazy. It wasn’t so long ago that Coleco’s Adam computer was kept off of the market for an extra two months due to FCC Class B requirements. Numerous useful products were delayed or shelved because of interference with radios, cordless phones, televisions, etc. Light Squared’s system is FAR more disruptive, and they are still in play. Amazing.
LightSquared are trying to downplay the interference.
How about a $100,000 fine for each infraction? How many GPS receivers are there? Millions? That’ll put them out of business and effectively shut down their system.
However, that would require that the FCC to enforce their own regulations. There is a lot of influential money available to pay for lawyers, pay off politicians, and to look for loop holes.
If a small business or American citizen were to try this, they'd be shut down in a second. It is proof once again that cronyism and money control our economy. Not Capitalism.