The LightSquared Week in Review
Posted by Steve Fravel on Sunday, January 29, 2012 · 
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Early last week, LightSquared announced that it had signed its 39th wholesale agreement, welcoming Telcom Ventures to the 4G LTE service. Telcom Ventures operates two services, Assist Wireless and New-Talk. Both services carry the FCC certification of Eligible Telecommunications Carrier (ETC), which allows them to provide lifeline services to low-income subscribers.
LightSquared‘s plans are currently on hold, waiting for approval from the FCC before it can begin operations with its wholesale partners. Read more
More on LightSquared
Posted by Steve Fravel on Friday, January 20, 2012 · ·
To review what has taken place over the past week or so: the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing (PNT) Executive Committee announced on Friday January 13 that, “Based upon this testing analysis, there appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few months or years without significantly interfering with GPS. As a result, no additional testing is warranted at this time.” The announcement was released after follow-up testing of general location and navigation devices and cellular GPS had taken place. Read more
Sen. Grassley Continues, LightSquared and Others on Hold
Posted by Steve Fravel on Thursday, January 12, 2012 · ·
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), has requested information from GPS companies in regard to communications between the investment group (Harbinger Capital Partners), the FCC and the White House prior to the granting of an ancillary terrestrial waiver to LightSquared. Sen. Grassely has given the GPS group, which includes Garmin and John Deere, a deadline of January 25. He has requested the same info from the FCC and Harbinger Capital Partners. Read more
Tilting at GPS? What About the Airplanes?
Posted by Steve Fravel on Friday, December 23, 2011 · ·
“The one inescapable conclusion from two rounds of independent testing is that the incompatibility is not caused by LightSquared’s network,” said Jeff Carlisle, executive vice president – regulatory affairs at LightSquared following the filing of a petition for a declaratory ruling at the FCC earlier this week. The filing asks the commission to rule that Global Positioning System (GPS) devices do not have a right to interference protection from the LightSquared network. In addition, it asks that the FCC make clear that the cost of ensuring that GPS devices operate without interference is the sole responsibility of the device owner and not LightSquared. Read more
LightSquared Testing Results – Conflicting Findings?
Posted by Steve Fravel on Monday, December 19, 2011 · (2) ·
Last week we covered a new deal between LightSquared and FreedomPop, in addition to a list of concerns and adverse findings which could be damaging to the launch of service by LightSquared.
We noted that LightSquared appeared to be buoyed by testing resulted provided by Alcatel-Lucent. We also noted that an early draft of testing performed by the U.S. government contained information contrary to the Alcatel test. The National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT), which represents eight government agencies with GPS interest, performed the testing.
At this point, the government testing appears to agree with the LightSquared results in regard to cellular interference: using the spectrum further from GPS traffic, at lower power, LightSquared does not interfere with GPS service obtained via cellular devices.
However, in a statement released last Wednesday, federal officials indicated that LightSquared’s proposed mobile satellite network would interfere with the “majority” of other tested general purposed GPS receivers, and pose dangerous disruption to airline safety systems. LightSquared is on record disagreeing with the new test result findings. Read more
‘Free’ Wireless Broadband
Posted by Steve Fravel on Friday, December 9, 2011 · ·
Skype and Joost co-founder Niklas Zennstrom has signed his new start-up venture FreedomPop to a deal with LightSquared. In a joint press release issued November 8, the two companies describe the 2012 launch of FreedomPop with the “ultimate objective to ensure that every American has access to fast, free and convenient communications services.” Read more
More LightSquared Testing
Posted by Steve Fravel on Thursday, December 1, 2011 · ·
Testing results were provided to federal officials yesterday in the ongoing LightSquared quest to provide hybrid-terrestrial LTE services. Testing in the L-band spectrum on both cellular and GPS general navigation receivers has been completed at the request of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). Read more