LightSquared at odds with industry, government agencies over GPS interference

The swath of airwaves on which LightSquared plans to operate its network runs adjacent to those used by the GPS industry. GPS signals would be overpowered and drowned out as a result, opponents have said.

But executives at LightSquared are bullish that a solution can be reached. Last week the company offered to relocate the network on spectrum that’s farther away, a move that chief executive Sanjiv Ahuja claims would eliminate 99.5 percent of interference. “This industry is blessed with very strong technical talent that has developed strategies to deal with interference all around the world,” he said. “We understand the interference concerns here and I have full confidence in LightSquared engineers as well as the GPS community’s engineers to be able to work through any of these questions as they arise.” LightSquared and the U.S. GPS Industry Council are expected to issue a technical report to the Federal Communications Commission later this week. Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel at GPS firm Trimble, represents the Coalition to Save Our GPS, a group that opposes LightSquared’s project. He doubted the solution put forth by LightSquared last week and urged the FCC to be skeptical. “Our view from the start is given how ubiquitous GPS is .?.?. there should be a very, very high hurdle before you let such a totally different use [of spectrum] in any proximity to that,” he said. “It’s most definitely a wait and see” situation, said Byrne at IDC. “A lot depends on how that technical report is received and whether this is a situation where there is such a spotlight on it that the FCC needs to go the extra mile to make sure their solution is actually a solution.”