Following contentious leaks of the results earlier this week, a government technical group released a report showing continued interference issues between general purpose GPS receivers, flight safety systems and LightSquared’s planned use of 1.6 GHz spectrum.
“Preliminary analysis of the test findings found no significant interference with cellular phones,” said Anthony Russo, director of the National Coordination Office on behalf of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing, which conducted the testing. “However, the testing did show that LightSquared signals caused harmful interference to the majority of other tested general purpose GPS receivers. Separate analysis by the Federal Aviation Administration also found interference with a flight safety system designed to warn pilots of approaching terrain.”
The tests were conducted last month, with the analysis presented to a technical steering group representing nine federal agencies that are part of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing. Tests conducted earlier this year also showed similar interference issues.
LightSquared attempted to make the best of the news, saying the lack of interference with cellular systems was a positive but that the ongoing GPS interference issues continue to be due to overreaching GPS devices.
“While we are eager to continue to work with the FAA on addressing the one remaining issue regarding terrain avoidance systems, we profoundly disagree with the conclusions drawn with respect to general navigation devices,” LightSqured CEO Sanjiv Ahuja said. “LightSquared has had the legal and regulatory right to use its spectrum for eight years over two administrations. The testing further confirmed that the interference issues are not caused by LightSquared’s spectrum, but by GPS devices looking into spectrum that is licensed to LightSquared. We have taken extraordinary measures — and at extraordinary expense — to solve a problem that is not of our making. We continue to believe that LightSquared and GPS can co-exist. And we will continue to work with the federal government on a solution that will allow us to begin investing $14 billion in private money into the infrastructure of America to create jobs, competition and increased access to technology to the nation.”
LightSquared noted earlier this week that the testing was done using power levels up to 15 times what the company guaranteed it would limit its service.
Analysts have noted that GPS receivers do indeed leak into LightSquared’s spectrum assets, though many also note that it would be difficult to retrofit the millions of devices already in the market into compliance. LightSqured has used this issue as a pulpit representing other spectrum holders that might run into similar issues.
The Federal Communications Commission appears to be trying to work with LightSquared on the issue as it wants to fulfill the President’s national broadband initiative, but looks to have its hands tied due to the strong embedded nature of GPS systems and potential harm to flight safety systems.
LightSquared was hoping to begin rolling out its services by early next year on its way to meeting FCC requirements of 260 million potential customers covered by the end of 2016. That process would be helped by LightSquared’s recent network hosting agreement with Sprint Nextel as well as its already launched satellite.
Earlier this week LightSquared held a conference call where it said it remained solely focused on getting its planned wholesale LTE network to market. During the call the company tried to brush aside any funding concerns, though it did acknowledge that it currently had sufficient capital to support operations for the next several quarters.
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