LightSquared suffers biggest blow yet
US federal agency concludes the operator could not build any kind of LTE network in its satellite spectrum without affecting GPS
Published: 16 January, 2012
READ MORE: Spectrum | US | LightSquared | Infrastructure | Regulator | Satellite | GPS | LTE
LightSquared has suffered the biggest blow so far to its plans to build a US-wide wholesale LTE network in mobile satellite spectrum. A committee of federal agencies dealing with positioning systems, PNT ExComm, has issued the most damning report yet on the would-be operator's potential to interfere with GPS services.
While LightSquared has offered a range of remedies to reduce the danger of LTE signals affecting GPS - such as confining itself to one portion of its band, introducing filters, or changing power levels - PNT ExComm (the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Executive Committee) concludes that any LTE network the carrier would build would still interfere with GPS devices nationwide, regardless of how far transmission power is reduced.
The report is likely to have a profound influence on the FCC, which is currently evaluating its own and third party tests to decide whether to grant LightSquared a permanent waiver, allowing it to operate terrestrial-only services in a satellite band. Without that permission, the project will fail; the US will lose one of the most ambitious solutions to its broadband capacity squeeze; the FCC will face embarrassment over its hasty support for the project before the GPS issues had been considered; and yet again, the other spectrum holders will shift their positions.
Sprint, which recently put its network and spectrum sharing deal with LightSquared on hold until the regulatory issues were finalized, will lose a revenue stream and a source of additional frequencies, which is likely to force it to promote Clearwire, recently relegated to the position of poor relative, to a key role in its 4G and wholesale strategies again (though the latter business, and Clearwire itself, have been weakened by their main customers, the cablecos, recently defecting to Verizon).
Dish Network, the other major holder of mobile satellite spectrum, is the most likely player to step into the void left by LightSquared, as its bands are further away from GPS - it has less capacity than LightSquared, but such a move could make a joint venture, or even merger, with T-Mobile USA more probable.
According to IDG News, the nine federal agencies that make up ExComm came to unanimous decision after concluding that LightSquared's signals would case interference for 75% of the GPS devices tested. This make the chances of FCC approval very slim indeed.
LightSquared is not going down quietly, and immediately responded with a letter accusing PNT ExComm of extreme bias, and pointing out that the body' board representative from space agency NASA, Bradford Parkinson, also sits on the board of Trimble Navigation, a GPS device maker and vocal opponent of the LightSquared project. The operator demanded that the NTIA take over the testing process, presumably on the grounds that it would have less bias. However, it was the NTIA, the government technology agency, which had asked PNT ExComm to supervise the tests in the first place.
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