Lightsquared

 

is history, according to this article, they are now defunct.

http://tinyurl.com/889enka

Can't say I'm sorry but I am surprised, I really didn't think the FCC would stop them.

New York Times article

Glad to Hear It

Glad to hear it. It certainly took a long time for the FCC to wise up & figure out that Lightsquared would screw up the existing system royally.

Fred

Didn't wise up.

The FCC didn't wise up, they were told to stop them.

The FAA and international organizations have invested Billions in a new satellite (GPS) based navigation and tracking system. They have set up international cooperation's on equipment requirements, etc. They were not about to have any company move in on a already crowded frequency band and jam it with internet data. Which draws more revenue, International Commercial Aviation or Internet? No brainer.

For information about the aviation intentions see 'ADS-B'.

Steve

great news

just bought a garmin gps so I 'm glad to hear the fcc is gonna stick to their original mandate given to lightsquared that the new network can't interfere with gps signals.

I hope this is case closed!

the sad thing is it looks like the fcc was told to stop lightsquared by the aviation and military. it doesn't look like they would do it themselves.

RESTON, Va. – LightSquared was dealt yet another blow in its effort to build a wholesale 4G cellular network.

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), a federal agency that oversees government and military spectrum use, ruled Tuesday that LightSquared will inevitably interfere with other devices, including GPS products, which use frequencies neighboring the spectrum licensed to LightSquared.

As a result, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said it is proposing lifting its conditional permission for LightSquared to operate.

There is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time.

- Federal Communications Commission statement

"[The] NTIA ... has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time," the FCC said in a statement. "Consequently, the commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared."

The FCC, while hoping LightSquared might help with the ongoing spectrum crunch, has said all along that any commercial operations for LightSquared were conditioned on being able to operate without interference to existing devices.

"The commission clearly stated from the outset that harmful interference to GPS would not be permitted," the FCC said.

For its part, LightSquared maintained that the NTIA findings were based on flawed studies and said it "remains committed to finding a resolution with the federal government and the GPS industry to resolve all remaining concerns."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/15/gps-saved-lightsqu...

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"real achievement in life comes down to three key elements. preparation, timing and execution!" quote by president LBJ

Couldn't have....

happened to an nicer guy. Just my opinion of course.

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falcone

Jery wrote:

happened to an nicer guy. Just my opinion of course.

falcone will say anything, make up any lie, bribe any official to get his way, and he doesn't care if all gps are screwed up in the process as long as he gets his 4g network and makes a buck for his hedgefund. by the way, this is same hedgefund that had record profits resulting from its bets against the subprime industry.

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"real achievement in life comes down to three key elements. preparation, timing and execution!" quote by president LBJ

A few quotes from LightSource

Quote:

The result is that a relatively small number of users are standing in the way of a $14 billion private investment in a nationwide wireless broadband service that will provide enhanced competition for more than 260 million Americans.

another

Quote:

"I think there is a common perception that the political weight is on the side of the GPS industry, because they have been effective in getting their constituents to say all kinds of scary things about what will happen if our network is buit," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for LightSquared. "They do this to isolate us. But what they're saying simply is not true. And people all over the country, including our partners know that. They can see we are trying to offer something valuable to American consumers and businesses. And that's the support the letters from state legislators and from our supporters on the Hill are showing."

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1490LMT 1450LMT 295w

Total lack of understanding of RF systems

Quote:

Interference of LightSquared’s signals with GPS systems is a tricky issue for the F.C.C., telecommunications experts say, because the interference appears not to be the fault of LightSquared. The most commonly used GPS receivers tend to pick up signals from outside of the segment of spectrum designated for GPS.

Because the satellite-telephone segment of airwaves, used by LightSquared, is next to the GPS band on the electromagnetic spectrum, GPS devices will frequently hear those extraneous transmissions.

The F.C.C. could have told GPS users and systems manufacturers that they were at fault for letting their devices stray into nearby airwaves, but that would mean overhauling an industry now in widespread use.

Statements like the above show a complete lack of understanding of RF systems by LS. Practical RF filters do not provide 'brick wall' rejection, and any receiver - particularly those that must deal with extremely weak signals such as GPS receivers - can be overloaded and desensitized by nearby high power signals. Good riddance to LS.

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Fat Lady Sings

Glad to see somebody finally decided to "put a fork in it". Forgetting their attempt to hijack the L1 band, I still think the idea of having a wholesale LTE carrier is a good idea. Perhaps if Harbinger Capital Partners had spent their money to acquire legitimate terrestrial licenses instead of trying to convert spectrum that should not be converted, they would be in the early stages of a network rollout. This denial may actually be good news for Sprint as they are in the process of upgrading their entire network and, along with Clearwire, could probably entertain more wholesale customers.

@ddeerrff: I read that section of the Times article too and wanted to cringe. Then again, they do not hire these reporters for their RF expertise (or scientific knowledge) it seems.

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I support the right to keep and arm bears.

.

ddeerrff wrote:

Practical RF filters do not provide 'brick wall' rejection, and any receiver - particularly those that must deal with extremely weak signals such as GPS receivers - can be overloaded and desensitized by nearby high power signals.

Thanks for summing it up it so succinctly. Sometimes it's easy to forget how much analog stuff still goes on in this "Digital Age".

is there a bigger issue here?

Aardvark wrote:

Glad to see somebody finally decided to "put a fork in it". Forgetting their attempt to hijack the L1 band, I still think the idea of having a wholesale LTE carrier is a good idea. Perhaps if Harbinger Capital Partners had spent their money to acquire legitimate terrestrial licenses instead of trying to convert spectrum that should not be converted, they would be in the early stages of a network rollout. This denial may actually be good news for Sprint as they are in the process of upgrading their entire network and, along with Clearwire, could probably entertain more wholesale customers.

@ddeerrff: I read that section of the Times article too and wanted to cringe. Then again, they do not hire these reporters for their RF expertise (or scientific knowledge) it seems.

I think this issue is really bigger then bandwidth and how its used. its about selfish capitalism. falcone basically doesn't give a crap that he was gonna make all current gps useless and had no intention of taking responsibility for the cost of that. its about capitalism for only one reason "profit" and "f" everyone else!

this is why you need regulated capatalism, if not for the fcc, your gps would not work in about 6 months and you couldn't do anything about it.

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"real achievement in life comes down to three key elements. preparation, timing and execution!" quote by president LBJ

It's like Opera--

These political death-scenes are like Opera.

in Verdi's La Traviata, you know in the first few minutes of Act 1 who's gonna die.

But it takes her until the last notes of Act 4 to do it.

In a Verdi opera particularly, it's the horns that do 'em in -- and in La Traviata, it takes the horns half an hour to do their job.

In the Opera that is LightSquared, the horns are warming up, but we've got at least half an act to go yet before the curtain comes down.

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