Tech subcommittee to hold hearing on LightSquared

Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR), chairman of House Commerce Committee's technology subcommittee, told reporters he plans to hold a hearing on wireless startup LightSquared.

The company, which has invested billions of dollars to launch a wholesale wireless broadband service, has become embroiled in controversy since tests showed its planned network could interfere with GPS devices. Chairman Walden did not suggest any wrongdoing, but he questioned why the Federal Communications Commission allowed LightSquared to get as far as it has in the regulatory process before discovering the interference problems, but he suggested there could still be an engineering solution to the interference problem. He noted that the interference is a result of GPS devices receiving signals from outside of their designated frequencies — not by LightSquared's signal bleeding into the GPS band. He said he hopes it would be possible for GPS companies to modify their receivers to work in the presence of LightSquared's network. Chairman Walden said his hearing will probe why the FCC did not discover the interference problem earlier and what can be done about it now.