LightSquared Retreats Again in Face of Continuing GPS-Interference Objections
LightSquared made the latest in a series of concessions in response to persistent objections from government and business to interference risks to GPS from the company’s proposed wholesale wireless-broadband network. By ex parte filing with the FCC late Monday, the company agreed to make the use of its spectrum closest to GPS subject to approval by a federal interagency committee in addition to the commission and to limit its increase in power on the ground over time.
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These and previous changes of position represent a significant effort to make other private interests and the government more comfortable with the prospect of LightSquared’s operation, the author of the letter, Jeffrey Carlisle, the company’s executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy, said Tuesday. “As we go through the process, we know a lot more than we did” previously, he said. “We are closing in on a relatively containable set of issues” relating to final approval by the FCC, Carlisle said.
Opponents acknowledged that LightSquared had made a serious concession concerning the spectrum but said they were far from satisfied. The company’s “proposal to make use of the upper 10 MHz subject to the approval of National PNT Executive Committee, the government body primarily responsible for protecting the integrity and operational effectiveness of the GPS constellation and critical GPS uses, is a constructive step,” the Coalition to Save Our GPS said in a written statement. “Unfortunately, LightSquared ties its agreement to do that to being given the green light to proceed full steam ahead in the lower 10 MHz, which is very premature. Moreover, this proposal, along with LightSquared’s various other proposals, still falls far short of a comprehensive resolution of the GPS interference issue.” The coalition declined through a spokeswoman to elaborate.
LightSquared has given so much ground that its position isn’t clearly consistent with financing and running its network and service, although it is consistent with the posture of a company that despairs of winning FCC approval and is preparing to show in a lawsuit challenging rejection how reasonable it had been, said consultant Tim Farrar of TMF Associates in Silicon Valley. “The chances of this network ever being built out are pretty low,” he said. “So the chances of it ending up in litigation are pretty high.” Carlisle said LightSquared “would not be putting this on the table” except as a “good-faith proposal” aimed at getting into business.
LightSquared claimed a small victory over what it had denounced as a distorted leak of interference-test results (CD Dec 13 p4). It pointed reporters to a statement from an NTIA spokeswoman that Bloomberg News quoted after the company objected to its damaging report on the leak: “Our analysis is still under way and we are examining the full range of scenarios. The conclusions to be drawn from the test data will vary depending on factors such as LightSquared’s power level and other technical variables.” The Department of Defense, an official of which co-chairs the executive committee, declined to comment on a request by LightSquared for an investigation of the leak and punishment of the leaker.