Posted on 01/16/2012 10:26:46 AM PST by bigbob
Top government officials said Friday that there are "no practical solutions" to GPS interference problems caused by LightSquared's planned mobile broadband network, signaling that the venture-backed company may have to abandon its plans to deploy LTE service in spectrum near to GPS bands.
"There appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or year without significantly interfering with GPS," Defense Department Deputy Secretary Ashton Carter and Transportation Department Deputy Secretary John Porcari said in a letter to NTIA Administrator Lawrence Strickling. "As a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time."
Both LightSquared's original deployment plan and its revised plan - which it said fixed interference problems for 99 percent of GPS receivers - still would cause "harmful interference to many GPS receivers," the officials wrote.
(Excerpt) Read more at wirelessweek.com ...
A perfect example of crony capitalism and reliance on political influence to replace good judgement and science. Sound familiar?
The FCC badly needs a major overhaul, heads need to roll, and the activist element within FCC needs to be eliminated, pronto.
Sprint can stuff their idea straight up their @ss.
“LightSquared’s primary backer, Philip Falcone’s hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners, has sunk $2.9 billion into LightSquared. The company launched its first satellite in November 2010, signed up Qualcomm to develop chips and hired Nokia Siemens Networks to construct its network. LightSquared also signed a network hosting deal with Sprint that has been put on hold.”
and by the way, the GPS units that this report says will still be interfered-with? Those are the ones you and I buy and use. The only kind that LightSquared claims have been made to co-exist are the very expensive ones used by aircraft, surveyors, etc.
Obama personally invested money in the company that became LightSquared. Had this gone through we’d have all been screwed. Again.
Not much different from the continual squeezing of the public safety bands, rebanding of the 800 Mhz public safety bands, and the digital TV signal transition. The demand for mobile phone bandwidth is high, but the FCC management has been poor.
Exactly right. Instead of providing good stewardship for the RF spectrum, the FCC has become an advocacy group for certain new technologies that it thinks ought to be given an advantage through public policy. And we’ve seen plenty of examples that show what happens with the government tries to pick winners and losers.
LightSquared is an even-worse case, because of the political deal-making behind the scene that allowed them to obtain a license without going through the kind of testing and analysis that even a marginally competent engineer would know to be required. Rotten to the core.
It’s dead, Jim.
Further establishing my theory that there is good money to be made in pushing over-the-top megaprojects. I've noticed a lot of won't-happen-no-way-no-how proposals which make a small research & marketing group a nice livable income; give a nifty talk to enough people with enough money and they'll give you enough for a comfortable living. Sometimes you hit it right and make some serious progress pulling in serious money (like $2.9B). It's not about success, it's about pulling salary while going down a losing (to the company) road.
You might wonder how Lightsquared got approval in the first place to start building their network.
ANSWER: Obama boosters, and inside investors were Obama supports.
Pure political payback. Never mind that it interferes with GPS.
It is interesting that Sprint is trying to contract with this portion of the spectrum . They already got a sweetheart deal when the FCC ordered rebanding of the public safety portion of the 800 mhz band. As I understand that portion went to Sprint/Nextel for its 4G network.
It is interesting that Sprint is trying to contract with this portion of the spectrum . They already got a sweetheart deal when the FCC ordered rebanding of the public safety portion of the 800 mhz band. As I understand that portion went to Sprint/Nextel for its 4G network.
If you want the detailed skinny, look up in the current Forbes a long and detailed piece describing LightSquared, Philip Falcone, and Senator Grassley.
Falcone has apparently lost the battle.
Oh yes......a major opposition player is John Deere. They are certain that the Light Squared project will destroy the accuracy of their very expensive GPS systems that allow farming to a very close dimensional accuracy. The Systems apparently cost $15 grand and will be trashed if the accuracy is lost.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.