Falcone’s LightSquared Tells U.S. Its Plan Cuts Interference
LightSquared Inc Chief Executive Officer Sanjiv Ahuja
Phelan M. Ebenhack/Bloomberg
LightSquared Inc chief executive officer Sanjiv Ahuja.
LightSquared Inc chief executive officer Sanjiv Ahuja. Photographer: Phelan M. Ebenhack/Bloomberg
Philip Falcone’s LightSquared, seeking to quell criticism of its proposed $15 billion wireless venture, told regulators it would resolve potential interference for more than 99 percent of global-positioning system users.
LightSquared won’t initially use all of its allocated airwaves and is prepared to work with GPS users affected by its proposed service for 260 million people, according to a filing today with the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates spectrum.
The company’s network would use airwaves previously reserved mainly for satellite services. Makers and users of GPS devices including farm-equipment maker Deere & Co. (DE) say LightSquared will overwhelm their signals, which come from satellites, and disrupt navigation by aircraft, boats, tractors and cars. The GPS industry has urged regulators to revoke preliminary approval for the venture and make it use different airwaves.
Not letting LightSquared proceed using its authorized spectrum “would doom an innovative American start-up company,” Reston, Virginia-based LightSquared said in its FCC filing. “The commercial GPS device industry wants the commission to shut down an unprecedented effort to establish a nationwide wireless broadband network.”
“LightSquared must begin to deploy its network immediately or it may not survive,” the company told the FCC.
Lightsquared’s plans “in all their various shifting iterations” if carried out, would cause unacceptable interference to GPS services deployed in law enforcement, aviation and other fields, the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a group of GPS makers and users, said in a statement today.
FCC Review
LightSquared outlined its proposal in comments it filed alongside a technical report requested by the FCC. That report, written by a group that included officials from LightSquared, the GPS industry, and the U.S. government, offered results of tests for interference from the proposed service.
“The agency’s expert staff will now conduct a thorough and expeditious review of the report,” Neil Grace, a spokesman for the agency, said in an e-mail.
The FCC on Jan. 26 granted LightSquared preliminary approval, and said the company couldn’t begin commercial operation until interference concerns were resolved.
The agency will open a comment period on the working group’s report that ends August 15, Grace said.
“Nevertheless, our nation cannot afford to let spectrum go underutilized,” he said. “America’s economic growth and global competitiveness are on the line.”
‘Significant Interference’
LightSquared, backed by Falcone’s Harbinger Capital Partners hedge fund, plans to invest $15 billion to build a wholesale wireless service using 40,000 base stations.
The plan to limit initial operations to airwaves furthest from GPS uses would pose no risk to more than 99 percent of GPS users, and LightSquared is offering to underwrite “a workable solution for the small number” of GPS devices “that may be at risk,” the company said in its filing.
GPS users said it wasn’t clear that interference would be resolved for 99 percent of devices.
“We don’t think that’s anywhere near accurate,” Jim Kirkland, general counsel of Trimble Navigation Ltd. (TRMB), said during a conference call today.
In one test of the airwaves LightSquared now proposes for its initial use, six of 49 mobile telephones for consumers failed, he said. “Even the data on that lower band shows significant interference,” Kirkland said.
‘Massive Interference’
Studies submitted with today’s report to the FCC show “consistent and overwhelming evidence that LightSquared’s proposed operations would cause massive interference to every type of GPS device,” Kirkland said in the coalition’s statement. “There is no current, existing technology that solves this interference.”
The coalition, formed to oppose LightSquared’s plans, lists members including package shippers FedEx Corp. (FDX) and United Parcel Service Inc. (UPS), GPS-unit makers Trimble and Garmin Ltd. (GRMN) and the Air Transport Association with members Delta Air Lines Inc. (DAL) and AMR Corp. (AMR)’s American Airlines.
LightSquared intends “ultimately to deploy a network using a full complement of terrestrial frequencies,” the company said in its filing.
“This issue will be resolved by good data, smart engineers and good-faith problem-solving dialog,” Ahuja said.
LightSquared first made its reduced-airwaves offer on June 20. Lawmakers and witnesses at a congressional hearing last week said more tests are needed. Deere, the world’s largest maker of farm equipment, had said previously that LightSquared will interfere with agricultural gear even if it follows its plan to lessen interference.
OnStar Interference
A U.S. advisory panel that examined LightSquared’s initial plan concluded the service would degrade GPS navigation devices as far away as outer space and recommended that the FCC revoke the tentative approval it granted to the company in January.
Tests found that LightSquared disrupts General Motors Co. (GM)’s OnStar navigation service and equipment used by the Defense Department and the aviation industry, according to a study released June 9.
LightSquared’s original plan “is not compatible” with GPS operation, Roy Kienitz, undersecretary for policy at the U.S. Transportation Department, said at a congressional hearing June 23.
“That doesn’t mean the story is over,” Kienitz said. LightSquared’s alternative “has promise” and “any plan needs to be thoroughly tested before it goes forward,” he said.
The report LightSquared delivered today was due by July 1.
To contact the reporter on this story: Todd Shields in Washington at tshields3@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Allan Holmes at aholmes25@bloomberg.net
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