US: LightSquared 4G would have "severe operational impact" on GPS

The US Department of Commerce's telecommunications division has released an assessment of problems that the LightSquared 4G service might create for commercial and government Global Positioning System services (GPS), and the conclusion isn't pretty.

LightSquared's deployment of wholesale LTE "poses a significant potential for harmful interference" to commercial and government GPS, the National Telecommunications and Information Agency's Lawrence Strickling wrote in his introduction to the report. The NTIA assessment contains testing results overseen by the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (EXCOM). "The LightSquared Network initial deployment would cause severe operational impact over significant regions of the United States," EXCOM's testing team advises. The report's main conclusion: "LightSquared should not commence commercial services per its planned deployment for terrestrial operations in the 1525 - 1559 MHz Mobile-Satellite Service (MSS) Band due to harmful interference to GPS operations."