[time-nuts] LightSquared Bankrupt

[John Darwin Powers]

LightSquared Bankrupt, But Spectrum Void Still Beckons
May 15, 2012By: Alan 
Cameron



LightSquared, the company that mounted a powerful threat to GPS signals, 
declared bankruptcy on May 14, after losing a lengthy struggle in the court of 
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) with the GPS industry, the U.S. 
military (behind the scenes), the Federal Aviation Administration, and many 
other GPS users. However, the vacuum into which Lightsquared sought to step — a 
dearth of spectrum for exploding mobile data use, up 123 percent last year — 
remains a gaping hole that will likely attract other entrants.

The Lightsquared bankruptcy move followed collapse of negotiations with lenders 
to the company, and will likely give CEO Philip Falcone several further months 
of control. It is not known whether his efforts will seek to salvage the 
business plan to provide wholesale broadband capacity to wireless carriers, who 
need more capacity to feed a ravenous market. In her May Wireless Pulsecolumn, 
GPS World contributing editor Janice Partyka 
writes,
 “Carriers [at the CTIA industry show] sounded alarms about running out of 
spectrum to support ballooning mobile data consumption.”

As a result of the February FCC decision to revoke LightSquared’s conditional 
waiver to broadcast a powerful terrestrial signal immediately adjacent to a 
band reserved for satellite services, the company’s main asset, its spectrum 
license, lost most of its potential value, unless significantly repackaged and 
redirected, or traded for another spectrum band..

In late 2010, when the LightSquared threat first surfaced, Falcone maintained 
that LightSquared’s interference issues were not his to solve, because GPS 
users were encroaching on his spectrum. “People who are in adjacent bands have 
to understand that there is now a new driver in town driving on that highway,” 
he said. “And they can’t be weaving in and out of that highway.”

Falcone now has to deal with creditors who include Carl Icahn, the 
near-legendary corporate raider. Icahn and other investors have bought about 
$300 million of LightSquared debt. “Icahn is a take-control, alpha-male 
investor,” said Brad Balter, head of Balter Capital Management, as quoted in a 
May 3 Business Week story. “Falcone is both desperate and naive if he thinks of 
Icahn as anything other than an adversary who would wrest control of the 
spectrum if LightSquared went into bankruptcy.” What Icahn might venture if he 
gained control of LightSquared spectrum represents another unknown on the GPS 
horizon.

Spectrum Shortage. Meanwhile, writes GPS World editor 
Partyka,
 “Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile executives complained that the future of data 
use is at risk if more spectrum isn’t put to use. FCC Chairman Julius 
Genachowski defended the agency’s decision to block the AT&T T-Mobile deal with 
a rejoinder about spectrum shortage. ‘Some have argued that transactions — 
let’s be frank, one transaction — is somehow causing a shortage,’ said 
Genachowski. ‘But the overall amount of spectrum hasn’t changed.’  While this 
is true, spectrum is a concern. CTIA reports that U.S mobile data traffic 
surged 123 percent in 2011.”

In a statement regarding the company’s bankruptcy filing, Marc Montagner, 
interim co-chief operating officer and chief financial officer, stated "All 
LightSquared distribution partners and customers, including public safety, 
emergency response, government, and military users of LightSquared’s 
satellite-based communications services can continue to rely on LightSquared to 
provide them with mission critical communications services. The filing was 
necessary to preserve the value of our business and to ensure continued 
operations. The voluntary Chapter 11 filing is intended to give LightSquared 
sufficient breathing room to continue working through the regulatory process 
that will allow us to build our 4G wireless network.”

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[time-nuts] FCC Chair Talks Spectrum, Gets GPS Letter

[John Darwin Powers]

FCC Chair Talks Spectrum, Gets GPS Letter


Chairman Julius Genachowski of the Federal Communications Commission spoke to a 
partisan crowd on Monday, February 27 at the Mobile World Congress in 
Barcelona. While he did not specifically mention the LightSquared controversy 
or the FCC’s role in it, he made a remark that could be interpreted as 
expressing regret over the episode. Meanwhile, GNSS manufacturer Javad Ashjaee 
wrote Genachowski a letter, in the form of an FCC docket comment, disagreeing 
with the decision to step back from a Lightsquared waiver and decrying the GPS 
industry.

Genachowski's Barcelona speech came two weeks after the FCC withdrew a 
conditional waver for LightSquared’s broadband plans to broadcast a powerful 
terrestrial signal in a band designated for satellites, because test signals 
interfered with GPS reception. While avoiding the topic by name, he stated that 
“We recognize that this is an incredibly fast-moving space, that no one has a 
crystal ball to predict the future, and that humility is a value to be honored 
in policymaking.”

This remark followed an avowal that “our mission is to unleash the potential of 
communications technology. We believe in the power of dynamic free markets to 
drive these benefits, and that government has an important but limited role to 
play in enabling innovation and investment in communications technologies and 
services, promoting competition, and empowering consumers.”

Sounding ominous notes for the future — at least as far as GPS is concerned — 
Genachowski patted the FCC’s back for opening television white-space spectrum 
to wireless use, and voiced appreciation for the agency’s newly granted 
authority to conduct voluntary auctions of broadcast spectrum, approved by 
Congress and signed into law by President Obama. “The new incentive auction law 
is concrete recognition by U.S. policymakers of the need to free up more 
spectrum for mobile broadband, and the need for ongoing innovation in spectrum 
policy.”

Spectrum, it has become abundantly clear if it wasn’t already, is the wireless 
industry's lifeblood; each day brings a handful of forward-looking 
announcements of new products and services that will funnel massive amounts of 
data through limited frequency bands, at promised speeds that the current 
set-up will not bear. "Inefficiently used spectrum often isn’t the fault of 
existing licensees but instead traces back to government allocation decisions 
that predated auctions of spectrum for flexible use," Genachowski stated.

Meanwhile, JAVAD GNSS founder and CEO Javad Ashjaee published a letter he had 
written to Genachowski, on the FCC’s IB Docket No. 11-109, opened for public 
comment on the LightSquared situation. “I find your recent decision regarding 
LightSquared's network deployment to be unfair and harmful to not only the U.S. 
economy, but to the future of innovation,” Ashjaee wrote. “The only real issue 
is retrofitting faulty GPS units.”

“Please do not allow $14B of private investment in the nation's broadband 
infrastructure to disappear,” he continued, “especially when it will cost less 
than $100M to solve any problems associated with existing units. Your decision 
could render years of innovation and investment obsolete.

“GPS manufacturers should not be able to get away with faulty designs and the 
U.S. government should do not promote, support, and encourage design of flawed 
units. Even now, when the GPS industry is aware of a simple solution, they keep 
manufacturing and selling defective units to compound the problem.

“Please do not allow technology to lose to politics. It will be a national 
disaster if we lose 4G competitiveness and discourage investment in this 
country. If FCC loses control of the precocious spectrum in this case, who 
knows what will happen in the future?”

Javad's Comment to FCC

The Honorable Julius Genachowski
Chairman, Federal Communications Commission
445 12th Street, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20554

Ex Parte Communication. IB Docket No. 11-109

February 27, 2012

Dear Chairman Genachowski:

For the reasons outlined below I find your recent decision regarding 
LightSquared's network deployment to be unfair and harmful to not only the U.S. 
economy, but to the future of innovation.

It has been proven time and again that GPS and LightSquared can coexist. I 
demonstrated this to the PNT earlier this year, and results from independent 
labs confirmed my results. Even more telling, the recently published 
recommendations from the NTIA to the FCC do not dispute this fact.

The only real issue is retrofitting faulty GPS units. Let's take into 
consideration the aviation industry, which is highly regulated and extremely 
safety conscious. You can subpoena their retrofit histories and see when they 
found a problem in any parts of their aircrafts and how long it took them to 
fix the problems. Considering that changing a GPS antenna is easy task compared 
to other retrofits that they conduc

[time-nuts] The System: U.S. DoD, DoT Tell FCC No LightSquared

[John Darwin Powers]

Ashton Carter, U.S. deputy secretary for Defense, and John Porcari, deputy 
secretary for Transportation, have written an official letter to the assistant 
secretary of Commerce stating that “there appear to be no practical solutions 
or mitigations that would permit the LightSquared broadband service.” Carter 
and Porcari are co-chairs of the National Executive Committee for Space-Based 
Positioning, Navigation, and Timing. This represents the strongest 
intra-government statement to date on the issue.

Their letter further states that “both LightSquared’s original and modified 
plans for its proposed mobile network would cause harmul interference to many 
GPS receivers. Additionally, an analysis by the Federal Aviation Administration 
has concluded that the LightSquared proposals are not compatible with several 
GPS-dependent aircraft safety-of-flight systems.”

“No additional testing is warranted at this time,” the authors conclude.

They further propose to “draft new GPS spectrum interference standards that 
will help inform future proposals for non-space, commercial uses in the bands 
adjacent to the GPS signals.”

No response has emerged from either the Federal Communications Commission or 
the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, the two bodies 
charged with making a determination on the issue. But the letter appears to 
signal a coming end to a conflict that has occupied many, and tied up many 
resources and consumed many millions of dollars, for the past year.

One source commented off the record that “Our hope is this will be the end of 
the matter, and the FCC will withdrawal its initial approval and inform LSQ 
they must seek the 500 MHz in a different portion of the spectrum.”
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[time-nuts] FCC Asks If You and GPS Should Be Protected from Interference

[John Darwin Powers]

Group  the following material may be out of context of the normal subject 
matter, but take notice of the underlined portion in the second paragraph.


FCC Asks If You and GPS Should Be Protected from Interference

“We invite comment on LightSquared’s petition, and establish a pleading cycle.” 
Thus spake the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), groping for a way 
forward in the ongoing LightSquared/GPS conflict. The FCC has opened an 
Internet docket for public 
comment on the 
LightSquared position that GPS users and receivers “do not merit legal 
protection from interference” created by LightSquared. The FCC asks for 
comments by February 27.

LightSquared asked the FCC in December to rule that GPS receivers and users “do 
not merit legal protection from interference” caused by the proposed wireless 
broadband service. Such interference has been amply demonstrated by 
comprehensive testing from May to October of last year. Opening the docket for 
public comment is the FCC’s way of fielding the LightSquared petition.

LightSquared claimed in its December 20 petition that GPS makers sell 
“unlicensed and poorly designed” receivers that improperly listen to 
LightSquared’s airwaves.

Jim Kirkland, general counsel of Trimble Navigation Ltd. and head of the Save 
Our GPS Coalition, responded that Congressional directives bar the FCC from 
clearing LightSquared before questions of GPS interference are settled. The 
company’s December requests consists of “gross mischaracterization of prior FCC 
decisions,” Kirkland stated. “LightSquared and its predecessors have never been 
allowed to interfere with GPS.”

Parties are invited to file 
comments in 
response to LightSquared’s petition for declaratory ruling inIB Docket No. 
11-109 or ET Docket No. 10-142, no later than February 27. Parties may file 
replies in response to those comments in IB Docket No. 11-109 or ET Docket No. 
10-142, as appropriate, no later than March 13.

Click here for the FCC Public 
Notice, 
"International Bureau Establishes Pleading Cycle for LightSquared Petition for 
Declaratory Ruling."

PUBLIC NOTICE
DA 12-103 January 27, 2012
INTERNATIONAL BUREAU ESTABLISHES PLEADING CYCLE FOR LIGHTSQUARED PETITION FOR 
DECLARATORY RULING
IB Docket No. 11-109 ET Docket No. 10-142
Comment Date: February 27, 2012 Reply Comment Date: March 13, 2012
On December 20, 2011, LightSquared Inc. (LightSquared) filed a Petition for 
Declaratory Ruling (Petition), requesting that the Commission “resolve the 
regulatory status” of commercial Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers, to 
the extent their operations may be impaired by the ancillary terrestrial 
component (ATC) of LightSquared’s licensed operations in the 1524-1559 MHz 
Mobile-Satellite Service (MSS) band.1 To this end, LightSquared requests 
specific declarations designed to establish that commercial GPS devices are not 
entitled to interference protection from LightSquared’s operations, so long as 
LightSquared operates within the technical parameters prescribed by rule and 
Commission Order.2 Pursuant to Rule 1.2(b), we invite comment on LightSquared’s 
petition, and establish a pleading cycle.
On January 26, 2011, the International Bureau granted LightSquared Subsidiary 
LLC (a subsidiary of LightSquared Inc., hereinafter also referred to as 
LightSquared) a conditional waiver of the ATC “integrated service” rule, 
thereby establishing certain conditions that LightSquared must meet before it 
can provide the terrestrial portion of service contemplated by its proposed 
integrated satellite and terrestrial 4G wireless network.3 The Conditional 
Waiver Order prescribed an Interference-Resolution Process by which 
LightSquared would work with the GPS community to resolve concerns raised about 
potential interference to GPS receivers and devices that might result from 
LightSquared’s planned terrestrial operations. As a condition of commencing 
such commercial operations, the Conditional Waiver Order required that this 
process first be “completed,” a term defined as the point at which “the 
Commission, after consultation with
1 Petition for Declaratory Ruling, filed by LightSquared Inc., at i (filed Dec. 
20, 2011). 2 Id. at 29.
3 In the Matter of LightSquared Subsidiary LLC, Request for Modification of its 
Authority for an Ancillary Terrestrial Component, Order and Authorization, 26 
FCC Rcd 566 (IB, rel. Jan. 26, 2011) (Conditional Waiver Order).
Federal Communications Commission 445 12th St., S.W. Washington, D.C. 20554
News Media Information 202 / 418-0500 Internet: http://www.fcc.gov TTY: 
1-888-835-5322NTIA, concludes that the harmful interference concerns have been 
resolved and sends a letter to LightSquared stating that the process is 
complete.”4
To date, the Interference-Resolution Process has