Radio Technical Commission for Aeronautics has been setting standards for GPS avionics before ancillary base stations were approved by FCC.

Just look at the final two diagrams on their own PDF. The show that it’s the LightSquared signal that’s expanding (red bars), via the waiver, into the GPS range of reception (blue line). If LightSquared’s argument were correct that it is the GPS makers fault, the blue GPS line would be within the orange satellite band bars on either end and LightSquared’s own red bars would also be within those same orange bands. Curiously, even though these final two diagrams show the power/frequency limitations of the bands, the discussions in their pleadings only discuss frequency allocations with no apparent limt on the power of the transmissions.

As others have said, it’s only because LightSquared wants to use a waiver to operate outside the limitations of the satellite frequencies that these problems are occurring. Sure, they paid for the spectrum and are entitled to use it. But the waiver isn’t for sale so it should be rescinded since granting it has been shown to cause interference. If they can operate successfully within the originally purchased limitations, have a ball. But if they can’t design THEIR equipment to work within those limits, too bad.

Seems they took a gamble and lost.

I would bet that even if the FCC caved and approved the reclassification of the frequencies, (ignoring the safety issues with both cars and aircraft) the military would step in and put a stop to it for “national security” reasons. They will not allow a civilian corporation to jeopardize their equipment’s functionality.

But hey!
Every one of you reading this I bet has the computer skills necessary to search-out the address and email your local Member of Congress! Just keep it simple and to the point. This topic has nothing to do with political postures, it’s about who runs this country. You? Or the Light Squared executives and attorneys?

And hey! You can take action while still sitting on your butt!  What a Great Country….!

In any case they have zero chance of getting their stuff through.  You think politicians are going to back them over the UNITED STATES AIR FORCE?  LMFAO

First of all the cost will be in the BILLIONS since GPS users would have to REPLACE their existing user equipment with newer sets since the existing receivers are fully crammed with circuitry and there is no room to retrofit this “simple filter”…and the labor cost would be prohibitive.

Second, the GPS signals from the satellites 12,000 MILES away are very weak and GPS receivers use a lot of sophisticated signal processing to dig the satellite signals out of the existing radio noise!  Adding Lightsquared’s local transmitters would swamp the receivers and prevent this.

GPS is a primary navigation aid for the Military, Airlines, and General aviation – how many people would Lightsquared like to kill by interfering with precision navigation systems?

And finally a question:  Has anyone looked into the question of whether or not Lightsquared is a pawn of an unfriendly foreign power / nation / organization / terrorist group seeking to wreck havoc in the US and the International community?

Chris, you are a dope.

I see this as a health & safety issue when it come to interfereing with standard, known, GPS frequencies. Down come our GPS used in Aviation, Security and Public Safety, as well as introducing safety issues to millions of users around the world.  Thanks Lightsquared… why didn’t your engineers realize the spectrum you bought COULD have interfered with GPS units all over the world and vica-versa. Yell at the FCC all you want, but you should have known this before you bid on that slice of spectrum.