LightSquared Opposition Wants Spectrum Shift
An article was published in the Light Reading Mobile web-site today regarding LightSquared’s interference issues with GPS receivers. (http://www.lightreading.com/document.asp?doc_id=208849). Essentially, the article states that the GPS community is requesting the FCC look for new spectrum for LightSquared. This is really no surprise. With millions of existing GPS receivers in the hands of voters, how could this really end any differently. Forget the fact that LightSquared is technically meeting all of their regulatory requirements, or the fact that the GPS receiver manufacturers knew that the adjacent spectrum was allocated for terrestrial towers (requiring them to use better front-end filters). This result was dictated by the GPS manufacturers building receivers that allowed energy from the frequency band adjacent to Radio Navigation band to leak into their receivers, and in the end, I suspect that millions of GPS receivers (in the hands of voters) will trump the technical ligitimacy of LightSquared.
Soon Questiny Group will publish a white paper showing our analysis of the interference between LightSquared and GPS. Early results of that analysis show that there is nothing that LightSquared can really do about the problem as the interference is manifested within the GPS receivers themselves. This leaves the only option one of finding new spectrum for LightSquared-no easy task.
Another aspect adding to this drama is the financial terms LightSquared has agreed to. As a post in by TMF Associates blog (http://tmfassociates.com/blog/2011/06/) pointed out last Friday, if LightSquared does not deploy their network soon, they default on their financial terms. This could add to the pressure LightSquared is under to find a resolution to the interference issue (i.e., look for other spectrum).