Pressure mounts on FCC to stop Ligado’s L-Band plan

The Federal Communications Commission is once more facing pressure to go back on its decision allowing Ligado to deploy a 5G network using L-Band spectrum in the US, after rival satellite company Iridium filed a complaint in June 2023. Despite major pushback from the Department of Defense (DoD) and other federal agencies over GPS interference concerns, the FCC in 2020 unanimously approved, with conditions, Ligado’s application to deploy the low-power terrestrial nationwide network in the L-Band to support 5G and IoT services. Iridium filed its objection to the L-band network with the FCC just weeks after Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) rejected Ligado's application for authorization in Canada, also because of GPS interference concerns. Iridium told the FCC that the order authorizing Ligado to operate ancillary terrestrial component (ATC) services in L-band spectrum will cause “significant interference into Iridium user terminals, which enable reliable connections and critical communications at sea, in the air and in remote lands, as well as to government and military users around the world.” However, in response to the most recent protest, Ligado commented that Iridum's filing “badly misrepresents” the ISED decision. Since the FCC authorized the company's L-band use in the US, Ligado said it has made more than half a dozen filings to ensure it hasn't and will not take terrestrial deployment action until it has successfully worked with the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) and other federal stakeholders “to resolve in a fair and reasonable manner certain matters related to the company’s terrestrial spectrum.” The Ligado statement added, "as such, there remains nothing in Iridium’s filings for the [FCC] to address."