Am I Missing Something?
An article came out today announcing that LightSquared solves GPS interference with new device! The article stated that GPS device manufacturer Javad GNSS has come up with a device that “”The solution we’ve come up with dispels the myth that a product that eliminates interference couldn’t be done,” Martin Harriman, executive vice president of LightSquared’s Ecosystem Development and Satellite Business, said on a conference call with reporters. “We did it. And it didn’t cost billions of dollars or 10 years to do it. We did it.” The article goes on to say, “Harriman said that through its partnership with Javad GNSS, which makes GPS devices for such clients as the U.S. Geological Survey, has developed new receivers that can be used to avoid interference between LTE and GPS. Javad GNSS has also completed designing and testing prototypes that can be adapted to work with existing high-precision GPS devices, including those already being used in the field.”
Am I missing something? I thought the issue was not the inability to build new receivers, but the willingnesss of existing manufacturers and GPS users to accept retrofits and modifications to units already in the field? Afterall this is not really a “Eureka” moment considering that LightSquared has had to 1) reduce the generation of intermodulation products by dropping the upper carriers and 2)consolidate GPS augmentation signals in that same part of their spectrum. This latest announcement seems to be simply a new receiver with better filtering, and that only has an effect AFTER the other two changes have been made.
After my shock that this is presented as such a “revelation”, the factis that with better filtering, the precision GPS receivers can coexist wtih LightSquared using the lower 10 MHz. But we always knew this. The issue for LightSquared is that this still sacrifices half of their capacity, and add the cost of retrofitting existing GPS receivers. If anyone reads this article and believes that this solves the two-carrier LightSquared problem, please comment and let me know.