LightSquared proposes 'simple, affordable solution' to that pesky GPS interference issue

 
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If you don't know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else. - Yogi Berra

read this on a news website.

read this on a news website. I'd like to see their claim verified by an independent source, preferably someone who disagree with them.

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nüvi 750 & 760

impractical

Retrofitting the millions of GPS receivers out there is, if not impossible, completely impractical. Lightsquared needs to find themselves some different spectrum space that won't interfere with existing services.

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-Quest, Nuvi 1390T

LightSquared Offers to Pay to Retrofit

And these make you wonder just how much truth there is to the claim.

LightSquared Offers to Pay to Retrofit Government GPS Devices
PCMAG
By: Sara Yin
September 21, 2011

LightSquared has offered to spend "tens of millions" of dollars to retrofit certain government GPS devices with a proprietary component, in hopes of convincing the government to approve a billion-dollar plan to launch an independent 4G LTE network.

The solution, announced Wednesday, is a high-precision receiver that is supposed to drown out interferences caused by LightSquared's proposed LTE network, which runs adjacent to GPS spectrum.

Javad GNSS, a U.S. GPS maker, manufactured the high precision receivers and said it will have 25 pre-production units ready by mid-October, in time for testing being conducted by the Commerce Department and the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is also evaluating a revised proposal from LightSquared to use the lower 10MHz part of its L-Band spectrum, which it claims will show fewer interferences with GPS receivers.

Each receiver will cost between $50-$300, depending on device and specs, the company said.

"LightSquared is in active conversations with the government about covering the cost in whatever way we can legally, of retrofitting all the federal government GPS precision devices," said Terry Neal, a spokesman for LightSquared, in a call this afternoon with reporters. "We don't know how many devices there are, and we're not sure if anyone does because it's classified, but we think it's somewhere in the tens of thousands devices."
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2393368,00.asp

Soros turns up in Obama's LightSquared imbroglio
Washington Examiner
By Timothy P. Carney
09/21/11

As Republican lawmakers begin to dig into the White House's cozy relationship with a startup wireless company and the wealthy Democratic donor who owns it, a new character has appeared on the story's edges: liberal superdonor, conservative bete noire and controversial investor George Soros.

Soros reportedly invested in the telecom company LightSquared through a hedge fund, and many of the nonprofits he finances have backed LightSquared in regulatory and policy disputes.

First, Soros is reportedly an investor in LightSquared. The Wall Street Journal reported in November 2010: "In 2009, while some investors were asking for withdrawals, others were lining up to put money into Harbinger. They included Soros Fund Management, which during the past year became a significant new investor, say people familiar with the matter."

Additionally, the telecom- and tech-related liberal nonprofits Soros funds have gone to bat for LightSquared in its various policy fights. In April 2010, the Public Interest Spectrum Coalition filed a petition with the Federal Communications Commission backing Harbinger's business plans and met with an FCC commissioner on the matter. Four groups that belong to that coalition received six-figure gifts from Soros' Open Society Institute the year before.

Six months later, those four Soros-funded groups -- Free Press, Media Access Project, the New America Foundation, and Public Knowledge -- filed a joint comment backing LightSquared in a related regulatory matter.
http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/soros-tur...

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Huge Mess!

Politics at its worst. Can this mess ever be straightened out? Surely the Feds realize the mutinous outbursts that will occur if Lightsquared has its way in this scheme.

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Tuckahoe Mike - Nuvi 3490LMT, Nuvi 260W, iPhone X, Mazda MX-5 Nav

As Suspected

As I long suspected, LS will payoff the regulators by either fixing their devices or cutting some other such deal and throwing the rest of us under the bus. In the end us non-government users will be forced to replace/fix our equipment on our dime. The FAA and DOD will be happy to have equipment that works and remove all objections to LS's application. Of course the real fun starts when they light up the upper portion of their spectrum, which they initially plan not to use until a later date, and cripple government devices. Then it will be too late to go back to the drawing board.

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I support the right to keep and arm bears.

AHA! Another Solyndra

AHA! Another Solyndra circumstance.

Nothing like another example to give one total faith in Government.

Fred