Increasingly frustrated by the objections of the commercial GPS industry, LightSquared earlier this week said it asked the Federal Communications Commission to confirm its right to use spectrum the company has licensed from the government.
In a petition for a declaratory ruling, the company also asked the FCC to confirm that commercial GPS manufacturers have no right to protection from LightSquared's network because they are not licensed users of the spectrum.
Reston, Va.-based LightSquared has invested billions of dollars to launch a 4G LTE network that could inject more competition into the U.S. wireless market and help meet the increasing demand for wireless data services.
Commercial GPS manufacturers and other critics continue to raise concerns that LightSquared's wireless network, which integrates with satellite coverage, could interfere with the global positioning system devices used by federal government agencies and others.
LightSquared is blaming the GPS industry for not taking precautions to avoid interference with its network despite ample warning.
"LightSquared has had FCC authorization to build its network for over eight years and that authorization was endorsed by the GPS industry, and fully reviewed and allowed to proceed by several other government agencies," said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy at LightSquared, in a statement. "Commercial GPS device-makers have had nearly a decade to design and sell devices that do not infringe on LightSquared's licensed spectrum. They have no right to complain in the eleventh-hour about incompatibility when they had ample opportunity to avoid this problem."
Earlier this month, federal officials revealed that their testing found LightSquared's network would not significantly interfere with cellular phones but would cause "harmful interference to the majority of other tested general purpose GPS receivers," according to the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing. A final test report will be submitted to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the federal agency that advises President Obama on telecommunications policies.
The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing, which represents nine federal agencies, explains on a website why the GPS industry is concerned about LightSquared's network.
"The base stations of the LightSquared network will transmit signals in a radio band immediately adjacent to the GPS frequencies. The GPS community is concerned because testing has shown that LightSquared's ground-based transmissions overpower the relatively weak GPS signal from space," the committee states. "Although LightSquared will operate in its own radio band, that band is so close to the GPS signals that most GPS devices pick up the stronger LightSquared signal and become overloaded or jammed."
LightSquared claims it has incurred nearly $200 million to develop engineering solutions to mitigate interference with GSP devices. The company cannot launch its 4G network until the FCC concludes that LightSquared has resolved the concerns over such interference.
LightSquared doesn't plan to compete directly with the likes of AT&T, Sprint and Verizon Wireless. Rather, the company will sell its 4G services on a wholesale basis.
Over the summer, LightSquared and Sprint announced a 15-year network sharing agreement that is worth billions of dollars. The companies said the deal is expected to lower LightSquared's network capital and operating expenses by more than $13 billion over the next eight years compared to the cost of building a network by itself. Under the agreement, Sprint imposed a year-end deadline for LightSquared to obtain FCC clearance to launch its network, although Sprint has the option to extend the deadline, according to The Wall Street Journal.
