Ed Morrissey
HotAir.com
12/21/2011
The failure of LightSquared to demonstrate that their product won’t interfere with commercial, military, and aviation GPS may have damaged their bottom line, but it hasn’t dampened their chutzpah. Now, instead of claiming that they will refrain from interfering with millions of existing GPS units, LightSquared has sent the FCC a petition demanding approval for their system, and telling GPS users to essentially pound sand:
In the company’s most aggressively worded message to the Federal Communications Commission, LightSquared argues that the GPS industry has no right to seek protection from the potential interference that LightSquared’s network could cause. It said today that it has filed a petition seeking a declaratory ruling confirming its rights as a spectrum licensee. The company has been battling the perception that its network could possibly cripple critical GPS devices–hurting planes, farming equipment, and consumer devices.
While LightSquared–backed by hedge fund manager Philip Falcone’s Harbinger Capital–has worked to prove its network isn’t a threat, it has now taken a slightly modified tack: claiming that the GPS industry has been manufacturing devices that bleed into its licensed spectrum.
“The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing is that the incompatibility problem is not caused by LightSquared’s network,” said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president for regulatory affairs and public policy for LightSquared. “It is clear that GPS devices are purposefully designed to look into LightSquared’s licensed spectrum, and given this evidence, we believe decision-makers should consider LightSquared’s legal rights as the licensee.”
Slashgear notes that this is a change in tone from the earlier reaction to the test failures, which was to claim that the test results weren’t actually all that bad or that they were performed incorrectly. Now, LightSquared just wants what it thinks the FCC owes them…
…As Hot Air readers already know, that’s why LightSquared had to apply for the waiver in the first place. Their license restricts the use of their frequencies to low power satellite communications, not a terrestrial cell-phone network that broadcasts at much higher power levels. LightSquared didn’t request a waiver for “regulatory certainty,” they requestedan exception to regulatory certainty. And the FCC granted it only under the condition that LightSquared demonstrate that it would not interfere with GPS systems built in accordance with the FCC’s spectrum allocation plan, which LightSquared’s system spectacularly failed to do.
Now that they’re running out of cash, LightSquared wants to take the gloves off…
The complete article is at HotAir.com
