LightSquared's promise dims

LightSquared was the nation’s great wireless hope before its bid to win regulatory approval hit static in Washington. The startup seemingly had it all: hot new technology to speed smartphone connections, a billionaire backer, big-name partners and a White House that made spreading wireless Internet a national goal. These days, the company that’s received more than $5 billion in investments has been running a political gauntlet inside the Beltway.

“You usually solve interference issues through good engineering, not the political process,” LightSquared's CEO Sanjiv Ahuja told POLITICO. He’s still hopeful “good technology and good science will prevail.” The makers of GPS devices have launched a lobbying effort to convince lawmakers and regulators that LightSquared’s signals will disrupt their services — and federal agencies that rely on GPS systems to monitor air traffic and control military weapons also have raised interference alarms. The FCC and Commerce Department, meanwhile, are reviewing LightSquared’s proposal to mitigate GPS disruption, and officials maintain they won't green light the technology until interference issues are resolved. As LightSquared struggles to overcome regulatory and political hurdles, it raises questions about whether the barriers for new entrants into the well-established wireless landscape are simply too high.

If LightSquared, which is financed by big-shot billionaire Philip Falcone, of Harbinger Capital, can’t break into the market — who can?