Lot of smal news on the LightSquared front:
Today Sprint has desolved its partnership with the company. Sprint is returning $65 million in prepayments to LightSquared.
- Forbes
- LS press release ("It's best")
GOP Rep. Alan Nunnelee (Miss.) urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to not block wireless startup LightSquared's planned 4G network in a filing with the agency [in a Feb 28 letter to the FCC].
- The Hill Blog
In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) International Bureau, the American Soybean Association (ASA) and other organizations representing farmers and agribusinesses in all 50 states declared that “high-precision GPS technology is vitally important to American agriculture, and would be gravely harmed by LightSquared’s plans.”
- Delta Farm Press (The folks at the Save Our GPS Coalition distributed the ASA press release.)
LightSquared hired Ted Olsen, Bush's lawyer in Bush v. Gore, for its legal counsel going forward.
- Telcoms
Today (Friday Mar 16) is the last day for comments on the FCC's planned decision to deny LightSquared a license to proceed.
by Adena Schutzberg on 03/16 at 05:33 AM |
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LightSquared requested and recieved an extension for comments on the matter. The Coalition to Save our GPS was of course against a long extesion, but it was ok with a short one. This one is "in between."
The comment period was extended from March 1 until March 16; additional reply comments may be filed by March 30.
- Southeast Farm Press
--- original post 2/14/12 ----
The FCC released its final decision stating LightSquared's current foray into 4G should be shelved as there is no way to mitigate interference with GPS. The FCC basically rescinded its conditional approval of LightSquared's plan. The FCC relied on the NTIA's conclusions, sent to the FCC in a letter Tueday afternoon. The FCC ruled late Tuesday.
The next step per the FCC is for it to propose barring near-term deployment of the LightSquared system. The FCC is expected issue a request for public comment on the proposed action on Wednesday.
LightSquared continues to argue the testing was flawed and released a press release stating it intention to work out a solution. The Coalitiion to Save Our GPS stated its support for the NTIA's evaluation in a press release.
- New York Times
by Adena Schutzberg on 03/05 at 05:56 AM |
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With Tuesday's filing, LightSquared asked the FCC to enact new rules to require special design standards for GPS devices. In the filing, the company argued that GPS receivers could be fixed using filters or other technical modifications.
LightSquared acknowledges such a change may not help the company with its current woes, but would be good for both 4G and GPS providers in the future.
Jim Kirkland, general counsel of GPS-maker Trimble, a founding member of the Save Our GPS Coalition said Lightsquared is using the same "false premises and claims that LightSquared has repeated ad nauseam."
- The Hill
by Adena Schutzberg on 02/07 at 02:07 PM |
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In a conference call Wednesday, LightSquared Executive Vice President Jeffrey Carlisle alleged tests done to explore possible interference of the company's 4G network with GPS devices were rigged.
"The test parameters were chosen for failure," [Paid consultant Ed] Thomas said on the call. "They used an arbitrary figure to determine failure, which has no effect on performance. And they were allowed to select their own devices to test, some of which are not even sold commercially. The whole thing looks like a college student conducting an experiment for school who draws the curve in before making the measurements."
- Bloomberg
- C|net (Gory details here!)
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/19 at 05:06 AM |
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Even as LightSquared this week raised the issue of a conflict of interest of a committee member (The Hill), on Friday the Federal Aviation Administration released a letter from Deputy Defense Secretary Ashton Carter and Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari to the Commerce Department, basically saying there's no short term answer to the LightSquared issue. The money quote:
There appear to be no practical solutions or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service, as proposed, to operate in the next few years months or years without significant interference with GPS.
The statement was based on the expert panel's results; the letter recommended no further testing.
I actually recieved a
statement from the Coalition to Save Our GPS before I learned of the letter late Friday afternoon.
by Adena Schutzberg on 01/13 at 04:23 PM |
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