U.S. GPS authority finds LightSquared plan flawed
By Association of Equipment Manufacturers
NewsJan. 25, 2012 - Below is a statement from the Coalition to Save Our GPS on the conclusion by the U.S. federal government’s National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) that "both LightSquared's original and modified plans for its proposed mobile network would cause harmful interference to many GPS receivers." The Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) is a founding member of the coalition.
The PNT said, "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 years without
significantly interfering with GPS. As a result, no additional testing
is warranted at this time."
In response, the GPS coalition said, "We welcome the Jan. 13 statement on behalf of the nine
government departments and agencies that unanimously concluded that ‘no
practical solutions or mitigations’ exist that would allow LightSquared
to operate without causing significant interference to GPS. Today’s
conclusion represents the culmination of a year of unprecedented
technical effort to evaluate LightSquared’s proposal to repurpose
satellite spectrum adjacent to GPS for a nationwide wireless network
providing terrestrial-only services.
"The January, 2011, FCC decision to grant LightSquared a waiver imposed an
absolute condition that LightSquared would not be permitted to move
forward unless it could demonstrate that its proposed operations would
not interfere with GPS, and LightSquared fully accepted this condition.
Since then, every set of independent technical studies has confirmed
that LightSquared’s proposed operations would create widespread
interference to critical GPS uses, including the test results which were
the subject of today’s government conclusion.
"LightSquared has been afforded every possible opportunity to make its
technical case, and has failed to demonstrate that it can avoid
interference to many critical GPS-based activities. At this point,
there is no evidence that any further modifications to LightSquared’s
proposal would yield a different conclusion. Because of this, the PNT
Executive Committee’s conclusion that it is time to end technical
studies and conclude that the proposal is not viable is supported by
overwhelming technical evidence."
Related links
Association of Equipment Manufacturers
National Executive Committee for Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing
LightSquared
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