Amid a flurry of dueling press releases, the stakeholders in the LightSquared/GPS controversy turned their fortunes over to the Federal Communications Commission in what has become one of the most controversial applications before the commission in recent memory. LightSquared wants to build a nationwide network of 40,000 broadband Internet transmitters using radio frequencies in a band adjacent to that used by an estimated 500 million GPS devices in the U.S. Tests have shown that the LightSquared signals, which detractors say are billions of times more powerful than GPS signals, interfere with GPS and can make devices go dark miles away from the towers. LightSquared says the interference can be resolved by initially by moving its signals to the lower end of its frequency band and farther away from GPS and in the long term by hardening new GPS devices against its signals. The GPS industry says LightSquared's plans defy the laws of physics and the only solution is to move the broadband signals far away from GPS. The stakes are high. LightSquared says its plan will generate $120 billion in economic benefit. The GPS industry says the interference will result in a catastrophic collapse of a system that is essential to the operation of countless devices, systems and programs in the U.S.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/news/lightsquared-gps-issue-over-to-fcc