Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Congress Uses Budget to Undermine FCC Approval of LightSquared Wireless Broadband

Money talks. The FCC needs it, and the congressional appropriations committee isn't giving it. At least, not to help the controversial LightSquared Wireless Broadband initiative get off the ground.

The surprisingly powerful U.S. House of Representatives Appropriations Committee voted June 23 to insert special language into a spending bill that would effectively block the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from spending any money on LightSquared’s plan to launch a controversial LTE broadband system until concerns about interference with GPS signals are resolved.

The prohibition on expending any federal money means that the FCC is effectively barred from any further consideration of LightSquared’s plan. How? It's simple: even meeting to discuss the plan spends federal funds through employee salaries. In short, until LightSquared comes up with a new plan that completely protects all existing GPS navigation devices from any interference, the company cannot operate its satellite-based broadband service. As I commented in a previous post, this puts the impetus for protecting existing GPS solutions on LightSquared, not the GPS manufacturers themselves.

Not suprisingly, the hearings were marked by strong opposition from agencies such as the FAA testifying that the LightSquared plan would prevent the use of GPS in critical applications. According to the testimony, the U.S. Coast Guard would be unable to perform search and rescue operations, airlines would be unable to use GPS in landings at airports and other services would have their defense missions compromised.

Industry groups were even more strongly opposed to the LightSquared plan, suggesting that the use of an adjacent band by powerful transmitters would never be made to work without GPS interference. While representatives from LightSquared said that the problem could be solved by adding filters to affected GPS receivers, representatives of the GPS industry said that such filters don’t exist and that it would be impossible to retrofit all existing GPS devices.

Are lawmakers protecting out-dated technology by preventing advancements that would force manufacturers to update? It appears that way. The cost to implement LightSquared's technology has now been amped to paralyzing levels not with development to its own product, but with research and development to improve other technologies.

What's next: will GE be required to fund filters for all cordless phones so that their blenders and microwaves don't interfere?

Labels: Fixed Wireless Broadband, GPS, lightsquared, LTE