After a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and shilly-shallying the US national comms regulator, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), has ruled that the ambitious nationwide LTE/satellite network planned by LightSquared will not be allowed because it would cause "serious interference" with GPS signals, services and devices.
What makes the decision all the more galling for LightSquared is the fact that the FCC had earlier given conditional approval for network deployment and the company was working, and spending money, to do just that... ful text.
What makes the decision all the more galling for LightSquared is the fact that the FCC had earlier given conditional approval for network deployment and the company was working, and spending money, to do just that... ful text.
This is pretty awful for LightSquared; it's also a good reminder of the risks of operating in a regime where one requires explicit approval for a new market entrant.
ReplyDeleteHowever, if the claims about interference with GPS are valid, then one must consider the point about the use of the finite resource of spectrum.
There has to be some mechanism in place to avoid unwarranted interference. Whilst using the same frequency for different services in different parts of the world may not be a problem for some things, GPS, and other systems which are "worldwide" in terms of their coverage would be serious disrupted — centralised managed would seem to be essential. However, is it "first come, first served"? How easy would it be for someone like LightSquared to get access to spectrum to deploy a new service...