LightSquared: "Damn the torpedoes..."

T

tomokc

Well-Known Member
From today's (12/21/2011) Wall Street Journal.

LightSquared: “We broke the system (which was being used by defective GPS devices anyway), we shouldn’t have to pay for a fix, we’ll sue to continue if we have to, and to hell with our critics (which include GPS manufacturers, lawmakers, the US DOT, and the National Coordination Office for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing).”

Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577110440504412950.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews


DECEMBER 21, 2011
LightSquared Presses FCC Over Wireless Network

By GREG BENSINGER

LightSquared Inc., facing a year-end deadline with partner Sprint Nextel Corp., pressed federal officials Tuesday to rule against critics who say the company's proposed national wireless-Internet network will interfere with global-positioning systems.

In a filing, LightSquared said the Federal Communications Commission should find that it has no obligation to pay for a fix for the GPS interference and that its opponents can no longer stand in the way of the company's commercial launch, slated for next year.

The filing comes less than two weeks before a Sprint deadline that LightSquared receive FCC clearance to operate its proposed network as a condition of a 15-year fourth-generation-spectrum and equipment-sharing accord. LightSquared has said the Sprint accord will help it save $13 billion through the end of this decade.

LightSquared has been buffeted by criticism from lawmakers, the Defense Department and device manufacturers who say the company's airwaves can jam GPS signals. Trimble Navigation Ltd. and Deere & Co., which both make GPS-based navigation devices, have said that their devices previously operated with no interference and the companies shouldn't have to pay for any fixes.

The Reston, Va.-based company hopes to build out a 4G network to cover 260 million Americans by 2016 and compete with carriers such as Verizon Wireless and Clearwire Corp. in selling spectrum wholesale. LightSquared could inject needed capacity into the market after AT&T Inc. on Monday pulled out of its deal to buy out T-Mobile USA for $39 billion.

However, it suffered a blow earlier this month when federal officials—including at the Department of Transportation and the National Coordination Office for Spaced-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing—said their testing had found LightSquared's network would knock out a "majority" of GPS devices.

LightSquared said in the filing that GPS device manufacturers had the opportunity to retrofit their receivers to prevent any interference. "It recently has become apparent that the commercial GPS industry has manufactured, and sold to unsuspecting customers, unlicensed and poorly designed GPS receivers," the company said in the filing.

Jeff Carlisle, LightSquared's executive vice president of regulatory affairs, said he hoped the petition would compel the FCC to expedite its process, though he conceded that it was unlikely there would be any ruling before early next year.

A Sprint spokesman, Bill White, said the Dec. 31 deadline for getting FCC clearance still stood, though the carrier has the option to extend it. "Both Sprint and LightSquared are pulling back on expenses and will stop new deployment design and implementation for LightSquared on the Sprint network," he said.

LightSquared this summer agreed to use only a portion of its airwaves and lower the power of its cell towers to help mitigate GPS interference. It has agreements with Best Buy Co., Leap Wireless International Inc. and others to provide 4G mobile broadband service after it gets FCC approval.

The company also faces an uncertain future over how it will fund its operations. LightSquared officials have said the start-up has enough cash to operate until after an FCC ruling, though the company—funded largely by billionaire Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund—will need to find an additional $3.5 billion to be cash-flow positive over the next two years.

Read more: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577110440504412950.html#ixzz1hBJOcjLb
 
Yeah, if your equipment interferes with devices already on the market, Including aircraft navigation equipment, that is your responsibility to fix it or quit, not the manufacturers of billions worth of GPS equip already in use by consumers.
 
I just don't understand this company. They have a product. It can and does interfere with many other companies products. We have a system in place that not only already works, but works quite well. They develped a product that is interfering with everyone else, and could cause problems with safety. Yet they still insist "It's not our fault!!! You must pay to fix your stuff that has been around for a while to play nice with our new stuff!!! Oh, and by the way, we will run out of money soon, so we're need to find $3.5b to stay positive cash flow so we don't fail."

Did I get that right?
 
Well if the problem truly is that gps receivers don't meet the established standards then it really isn't their problem.

Something tells me there's more to it than that though ;)


Sent from 1865 by telegraph....
 
trafficinsight said:
Well if the problem truly is that gps receivers don't meet the established standards then it really isn't their problem.

Something tells me there's more to it than that though ;)
Click to expand...


Are the taxpayers on the ultimate hook for this?

LightSquared's Argument base on their legal and FCC Filings (they want to use the spectrum they paid Billion$ for)

"The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's network," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for LightSquared. "It is clear that GPS devices are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum, and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." (CNet News)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57345782-94/lightsquared-to-fcc-give-us-our-approval-now/
 
Declare eminent domain on that part of the spectrum and pay the "due monetary compensation." As that "butt" guy would say, "Boom, problem solved." In some ways this was the FCC's fault for not protecting the spectrum (and while the problem predates him, I'll take any chance I can to say that Michael Powell is a big fat jerkwad).
 
Qutch said:
Are the taxpayers on the ultimate hook for this?

LightSquared's Argument base on their legal and FCC Filings (they want to use the spectrum they paid Billion$ for)

"The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared's network," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for LightSquared. "It is clear that GPS devices are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared's licensed spectrum, and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider LightSquared's legal rights as the licensee." (CNet News)

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1035_3-57345782-94/lightsquared-to-fcc-give-us-our-approval-now/
Click to expand...


See bolded and underlined. I don't trust what LightSquared guys have to say, nor do I care. That'd be like me telling the government they need to start paying for all traffic accidents that have ever occurred on freeways and highways, because I mean, after all, they are responsible for designing the our system of interstates, right? There whole purpose was to establish a set of roads that the military could use in the event of a war. So lets now make it so that only the military can use highways like Highway 10, 20, 40, 95, 405, etc. Yeah, that'll never happen, nor should LightSquared be able to do anything with this. The FCC has certified many many GPS devices that will be effected by this. It's now the FCC responsibility to tell LightSquared they need to change their design to play nice with everyone else. We don't need a new system of networks to talk on phones that already work. But we do need to leave our system of GPS's in place because it has become critical to many facets of life. Police and Ambulance are two that come to mind. We don't need them for aviation. It's nice to have, but not required. But to get that ambulance to your house and actually save your life, that is something that shouldn't be messed with. Or how about using a GPS guided bomb in another country that uses this technology. It's be much simpler for them to jam out GPS guided munitions if all they had to do was turn on a fe cell towers with the technology that LightSquared has developed.


***please excuse spelling and gramar. Typed from my phone***
 
It's like when the auto tune failed for Ricky Martin! :) Uppside innnssssiide out, living la vida LOCAAAAAAAA
 
Their new motto: "Lightsquared—rejecting "no" for an answer at the speed of light squared"

Runners Up:

We're not in a jam; You are!

New equipment? Sucks to be you!

Alec—keep your iPhone on and leave the jamming to us

G—P—S. . . O—T—S . . . M—O—U—S—E
 
It kind of is due to the design of the GPS receivers. They tend to listen on spectrum that is adjacent to the GPS bands, either unintentionally or possibly intentionally. You can argue that they hd no right to listen to that spectrum but it had been empty forever and the engineers at the time had no way of knowing.

The more pressing concern is not who is right or wrong but weighing the merits of the two systems, because GPS is integrated so deeply that there is no way a majority of devices could be retrofitted. So, the question is which provides more value to the public, a free location service like GPS or more/faster wireless internet. I love me some fast internet, but I think the answer is clear,no pun intended. The government should seize the top half of lightsquared frequency, even refund them half the money. Then require all new GPS devices to strictly listen to only the GPS band and use the seized spectrum as a buffer and give everyone else 5-10 years to either get a new device or retrofit existing ones, before handing the spectrum back to lightsquared or their successors.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
It kind of is due to the design of the GPS receivers. They tend to listen on spectrum that is adjacent to the GPS bands, either unintentionally or possibly intentionally. You can argue that they hd no right to listen to that spectrum but it had been empty forever and the engineers at the time had no way of knowing.

The more pressing concern is not who is right or wrong but weighing the merits of the two systems, because GPS is integrated so deeply that there is no way a majority of devices could be retrofitted. So, the question is which provides more value to the public, a free location service like GPS or more/faster wireless internet. I love me some fast internet, but I think the answer is clear,no pun intended. The government should seize the top half of lightsquared frequency, even refund them half the money. Then require all new GPS devices to strictly listen to only the GPS band and use the seized spectrum as a buffer and give everyone else 5-10 years to either get a new device or retrofit existing ones, before handing the spectrum back to lightsquared or their successors.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
Seems like a pretty logical and equitable way of handling it. So I'm sure that's not remotely close to what will happen.
 
SpiraMirabilis said:
It kind of is due to the design of the GPS receivers. They tend to listen on spectrum that is adjacent to the GPS bands, either unintentionally or possibly intentionally. You can argue that they hd no right to listen to that spectrum but it had been empty forever and the engineers at the time had no way of knowing.

The more pressing concern is not who is right or wrong but weighing the merits of the two systems, because GPS is integrated so deeply that there is no way a majority of devices could be retrofitted. So, the question is which provides more value to the public, a free location service like GPS or more/faster wireless internet. I love me some fast internet, but I think the answer is clear,no pun intended. The government should seize the top half of lightsquared frequency, even refund them half the money. Then require all new GPS devices to strictly listen to only the GPS band and use the seized spectrum as a buffer and give everyone else 5-10 years to either get a new device or retrofit existing ones, before handing the spectrum back to lightsquared or their successors.

Sent from my SPH-D700 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


Seems logical. But where is the proof that GPS's listen to a wider frequency than they should. Seems like the FCC should be responsible for giving them the stamp of approval if thats the case. One thing no one has addressed yet is how is this going to effect cell phone usage overseas? Will this technology go global? How tight/strict are the requirements for things like this overseas?
 
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